Urban myth that Texas has "outsized influence" over textbooks adopted elsewhere

An article in the Washington Times repeated the urban myth that the Texas state board of education has "outsized influence" over the content of textbooks adopted in other states:

Battles over textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas, where bitter skirmishes regularly erupt over everything from sex education to phonics and new math. But never before has the board’s right wing wielded so much power over the writing of the state’s standards. And when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas. The reasons for this are economic: Texas is the nation’s second-largest textbook market and one of the few biggies where the state picks what books schools can buy rather than leaving it up to the whims of local districts, which means publishers that get their books approved can count on millions of dollars in sales. As a result, the Lone Star State has outsized influence over the reading material used in classrooms nationwide, since publishers craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers. As one senior industry executive told me, “Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas list.”

Until recently, Texas’s influence was balanced to some degree by the more-liberal pull of California, the nation’s largest textbook market. But its economy is in such shambles that California has put off buying new books until at least 2014. This means that McLeroy and his ultraconservative crew have unparalleled power to shape the textbooks that children around the country read for years to come.

This post and this post debunk this idea that Texas has "outsized influence" over textbooks adopted elsewhere. And even in Texas, local school boards are free to choose state-unapproved textbooks if the boards pay for them. And BTW, California does not have statewide textbook adoption at the high-school level.

Why can't reporters be better informed and/or more honest?

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NCSE publishes Stupid Steven's drivel

A report written by "Stupid Steven" Schafersman, which he claimed was published in the Reports of the National Center for Science Education, May-June 2009, v. 29, no. 3, barfed,

The periodic SBOE textbook adoption and review circus will remain with us. Every six or seven years scientists, science teachers, and science advocates must descend on Austin to defend the accuracy and integrity of biology textbooks from the attacks of Creationists both on and off the SBOE. This disgusting textbook adoption sideshow is demeaning and embarrassing to Texas and is a necessary waste of time to practicing scientists who have better things to do, but must take the time to defend the textbooks. The standards submitted by the science writing panels would have prevented the worst of this, but now we will see it again in its full nauseating stench in Austin in 2010 or 2011 (depending on when the textbook Proclamation is adopted). Texas citizens should be disgusted with this faux-democratic, oligocratic display of power politics, for most SBOE members know how they will vote years before the hearing commences. They will vote to further their Fundamentalist Christian beliefs by trying to undermine and damage science education in Texas. Others plan to vote to uphold the high qualities of professional science education by resisting the Creationist attacks on science textbooks. All the effort will be focused on persuading the swing eighth vote that gives the religious right radicals a majority. If they can reject a single biology textbook, the other publishers may capitulate rather than lose hundreds of millions of dollars in sales. Then the censorship I have witnessed many times over the decades in Texas will begin again

A lot of Darwinists are virulently intolerant of the slightest whiff of criticism of evolution in the public schools.

Once, when it was Schafersman's turn to speak at a meeting of the Texas board of education, then board chairman Don McLeroy remarked, "guess who's next."

IMO it is much better to have K-12 teaching controlled by the state board of education rather than by the college professors and K-12 teachers. The SBOE members are elected and are hence directly accountable to the public -- the college professors and the K-12 teachers are much harder to get rid of.

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Don McLeroy disappoints

Don McLeroy, Texas board of education member and former chairman of the board who led the fight for balance in evolution education, is unfortunately a religious crackpot. For example, he wrote,

“Freedom is unique to the areas of the world that have been touched by Christianity."

McLeroy is just plain wrong here. For example, the US Constitution owes a lot to the influence of the democratic system of government of the Iroquois Confederacy of Six Nations.

Contrary to what many Darwinists claim, one does not have to be a religious crackpot to support balance in evolution education.

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Brazen religious indoctrination

David Barton is one of six "experts" chosen by the Texas Board of Education to advise the board on making changes to the Social Studies TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) standards. His TEKS review submitted to the board says (pages 11-12),

(quoting first 126 words of the Declaration of Independence)When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

(It is from this section that students are to recite by memory under state law.)
The principles set forth here and subsequently secured in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights include:

1. There is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature

2. There is a Creator

3. The Creator gives to man certain unalienable rights

4. Government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual

5. Below God-given rights and moral law, government is directed by the consent of the government

Students must also understand the Framers' very explicit (and very frequent) definition of inalienable rights as being those rights given by God to every individual, independent of any government anywhere . . . . These fundamental five precepts of American government must be thoroughly understood by students, but they are not currently addressed in the TEKS.

Telling students that god is the source of their human rights is brazen religious indoctrination, especially when at the same time ignoring other sources and bases of those rights. For example, it can be argued purely on the basis of logic -- without any reference to a god at all -- that there is no good reason to deny someone a right when exercise of that right would not infringe upon the rights of others. Indeed, determining whether or not the rights of others are infringed upon provides a basis for determining what should be a right and what should not, whereas deciding what rights should be considered god-given is arbitrary. Also, I said in a previous post,
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Marshall [another fundy crackpot chosen as one of the 6 experts] and Barton are just plain wrong -- there is nothing in the Constitution that says that it is based on religion, nor is there anything in the Constitution that links that document to the Declaration of Independence, which does have religious references. One would think that if the Founders wanted people to think that the Constitution is based on the bible, the Constitution would say that it is based on the bible. . . . . . . . . .Marshall and Barton are putting words in the mouths of the Founders, viewing the Constitution as a document inspired by and based on religion when the Constitution itself does not have anything that supports that view. Furthermore, IMO the principles of liberty and democracy should be regarded as universal and not particularly based on the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, regardless of whether or not those documents are derived from religious beliefs. It is a myth that the Declaration of Independence originated the ideas of liberty and democracy. I assert that the American Revolution's purpose was not to establish a new form of government -- the governments that the colonies had after independence were not that much different from the governments they had before independence, the only real difference being that the colonies were independent of Britain. The American Revolution was primarily just the result of the harsh so-named "Intolerable Acts," which Britain enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party.

BTW, here is Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney's interpretation of those first 126 words of the Constitution, from the Dred Scott decision:

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration, for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted, and instead of the sympathy of mankind to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

So one of the things that the Declaration of Independence has done hss been to expose the hypocrisy of people like Justice Taney -- and some of the Founders themselves.

As for the statement, "It is from this section that students are to recite by memory under state law," I could find no such requirement in the current 5th-grade Texas social studies TEKS, and I see no reason why there should be such a requirement.

Barton's TEKS review says (page 12-13),

The Dual Documents of American Government. The TEKS should stipulate (but currently do not) that the Declaration of Independence is symbiotic with the Constitution rather than a separate unrelated document . . . . Only in recent years have the Declaration and the Constitution wrongly been viewed as independent rather than inseparable and interdependent documents.

Obviously, Barton's main reason for trying to link the Constitution to the Declaration of Independence is that the latter document refers to a "creator," "divine providence," etc. whereas the former document does not. He is not fooling anybody. Would our Constitution be any less valid if there had been no American Revolution and no Declaration of Independence?

Barton said (page 12),

Significantly, the Constitution directly attaches itself to the Declaration by dating itself from the year of the Declaration of Independence rather than from 1787, the year of its writing

Barton is really desperate here in his efforts to attach the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution. The Constitution only mentions (in the signature section) that the constitutional convention adopted the Constitution in the twelfth year of the independence of the USA -- the Declaration of Independence itself is not even mentioned. Also, I don't know what David Barton means about the Constitution "dating itself" -- the signature section gives the date of the Constitution's adoption by the constitutional convention, Sept. 17, 1987:

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

I am surprised that Barton has not seized upon the conventional statement "year of our Lord" as evidence that the Constitution is based upon the word of god.

Also, Barton's TEK review did not say where the above dates are stated in the Constitution -- I had to find the location myself. He also did not give a reference for a quote of a Supreme Court opinion. This TEKS review is very poorly documented.

Barton said (page 12),

In fact, to this day every federal law passed by Congress as well as every presidential act is dated not to the Constitution but to the Declaration

Barton is really talking through his hat here. I have read a lot of federal laws and none are dated to either the Constitution or the Declaration. And I am aware of just one constitutional provision that is dated to the adoption of the Constitution, and that is the 20-year ban on federal interference with slave importation, the first clause of Sec. 9 of Article I:

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight . . . .

Barton says (page 12),

Additionally, the admission of territories as States into the United States was typically predicated on an assurance by the state that its constitution would violate neither the Constitution nor the principles of the Declaration.

As usual, Barton provides no reference to back up this statement. It is hard to imagine something constitutional that would violate the Declaration.

One state, Utah, did have difficulty in getting admitted, and the reason was polygamy -- Utah was not admitted until its constitution banned polygamy. But polygamy does not violate the US Constitution, so here a state was denied admission because of something that did not violate the US Constitution. So the US government has expected more than just adherence to the US Constitution (and maybe the Declaration) as a condition for admission.

David Barton clearly has an ax to grind here: the indoctrination of Texas students in his religious beliefs. I am no big fan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, but here is a good AUSCS article about David Barton.

Also, Barton's TEKS review has various trivia and dogmas, e.g., "Nowhere in the TEKS is definition given to who constitutes a Founding Father, and the current definition is dramatically different from the historic definition" (page 13); "Missing in the TEKS is any identification that the government of America is a constitutional republic" (page 14); "Also, completely absent from the TEKS is any mention of the Electoral College system and its benefits -- how it allows small states to have a voice, thus preserving the bicameral nature of America's constitutional government, allowing both the people and the states to have a voice in the selection of a president" (page 21 -- this statement ignores the many criticisms of the Electoral College system). David Barton is basically saying that the way social studies is being taught now is completely wrong and that he wants social studies to be taught his way.

It is too bad that there aren't any members of the Texas board of education who support balance in evolution education without also supporting crackpots like David Barton. It doesn't have to be that way. And it is especially annoying when all supporters of balance in evolution education are lumped together with the likes of David Barton.
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Religion's influence on US history: Putting words in the Founders' mouths

I define "pseudo-originalism" as putting words in the Founders' mouths; i.e., giving the Constitution and other historical documents a meaning that cannot be derived from the express words of the documents. In a previous post, I condemned the pseudo-originalism of crackpot activist Judge John E. "Jackass" Jones the III, who said in a Dickinson College commencement speech that his Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions. The fundies' notion that the USA was founded as a "Christian nation" is just as bad. An ABC News article says,

The debate about whether to teach religious-based social studies in Texas public schools has dominated a broader discussion about the schools' curriculum, which is undergoing a review by state officials hoping to improve the nation's second-largest school system.

The term "religious-based social studies" falsely implies that the issue here is teaching religion in the public schools -- the real issue is teaching about the influence of religion on American history.

The ABC News article continues,
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"Of the six experts appointed in the spring by the 15-member Texas Board of Education to review the state's K-12 curriculum, three have said they would like to see more attention paid to the religious aspects of American history.

"The foremost problem that I see is that there is not nearly enough emphasis or credit given to the biblical motivations of America's settlers and founders," Evangelical minister Peter Marshall, the president of the Massachusetts-based Peter Marshall Ministries and one of the experts on the panel, told ABCNews.com.

"Our children need to know the truth about how our country got started," Marshall said.

"You never read about how the founding fathers were nearly all Christian believers and that it is their biblical world view that shaped the way they thought and achieved what they did," he said . . . .

. . . . . .David Barton, president of the Texas-based Christian heritage advocacy group WallBuilders, is another expert on the panel who would like to see changes made to the school curriculum.

"I think there should be more of an emphasis on history in the social studies curriculum," Barton said. "If there is an emphasis on history, there will be a demonstration of religion."

In his written review of the curriculum, for example, Barton argues that in order for fifth-grade students to fully understand how the American government was formed, they must also understand that it was rooted in religion.

"Students must also understand the framers' very explicit (and very frequent) definition of inalienable rights as being those rights given by God," Barton wrote.

Barton told ABCNews.com that he believes Texas' public school curriculum should "reflect the fact that the U.S. Constitution was written with God in mind."

But Dan Quinn, communications director for the Texas Freedom Network, an organization he says is dedicated to countering the conservative religious right in the state, said that what Barton and Marshall are proposing is a direct violation of the separation of church and state.

Marshall and Barton are just plain wrong -- there is nothing in the Constitution that says that it is based on religion, nor is there anything in the Constitution that links that document to the Declaration of Independence, which does have religious references. One would think that if the Founders wanted people to think that the Constitution is based on the bible, the Constitution would say that it is based on the bible. IMO Barton's main reason for trying to link the Constitution to the Declaration of Independence is that the latter document refers to a "creator," "divine providence," etc. whereas the former document does not. Marshall and Barton are putting words in the mouths of the Founders, viewing the Constitution as a document inspired by and based on religion when the Constitution itself does not have anything that supports that view. Furthermore, IMO the principles of liberty and democracy should be regarded as universal and not particularly based on the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, regardless of whether or not those documents are derived from religious beliefs. It is a myth that the Declaration of Independence originated the ideas of liberty and democracy. I assert that the American Revolution's purpose was not to establish a new form of government -- the governments that the colonies had after independence were not that much different from the governments they had before independence, the only real difference being that the colonies were independent of Britain. The American Revolution was primarily just the result of the harsh so-named "Intolerable Acts," which Britain enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party.

Also, the notion that the USA was founded with a simon-pure "wall of separation between church and state" is almost entirely based on the views -- and often the misrepresented or exaggerated views -- of just two of the Founders, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Even the religious views of George Washington himself are largely ignored. Ironically, when Judge John E. Jones III said in his Dickinson College commencement speech that his Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was based on his cockamamie notion that the Founders based the Constitution's establishment clause upon a belief that organized religions are not "true" religions, he was standing behind the college seal, which was designed by USA Founders Benjamin Rush and John Dickinson and which contains a picture of an open bible and the Latin college motto meaning, "religion and learning, the bulwark of liberty." The hypocritical separationists condemn the "Christian nation" notion of the fundies but have not condemned and have even approved Judge Jones' "true religion" speech. Even the Supreme Court has rejected the notion of a simon-pure "wall of separation between church and state," saying in Lynch v. Donnelly,

The concept of a "wall" of separation is a useful figure of speech probably deriving from views of Thomas Jefferson. The metaphor has served as a reminder that the Establishment Clause forbids an established church or anything approaching it. But the metaphor itself is not a wholly accurate description of the practical aspects of the relationship that in fact exists between church and state.

No significant segment of our society, and no institution within it, can exist in a vacuum or in total or absolute isolation from all the other parts, much less from government. "It has never been thought either possible or desirable to enforce a regime of total separation. . . ." Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 760 (1973). Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.

IMO we should certainly take the thoughts of the Founders into consideration -- indeed, some of them were very wise. But the Founders thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, the notion that our current policies should be based on the beliefs of the Founders has resulted in gross distortions of history. As a result of this notion, the Founders have been portrayed as everything from a bunch of bible-pounding, holy-rolling fundies to a bunch of godless, blasphemous atheists.
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Darwinist incivility

Don McLeroy's failed nomination for chairmanship of the Texas state board of education resulted in some of the most uncivil comments I have ever personally witnessed on the Internet.

In response to a video of Don McLeroy, a commenter on Sleazy PZ Myers' Pharyngula blog said (comment #65),

. . . .maybe most of us atheists are calm rational people, but there is a line you cross, and deserve a violent response. The only thing keeping us going apeshit and smashing your skull through is recognizing the evolutionary changes that have allowed us to rationalize our thoughts, reason through violent urges, and actually empathize with even the most disgusting examples of human waste.

I tolerate more incivility than most bloggers do, but I would not tolerate a comment like that on this blog. However, on Sleazy PZ's blog, such comments are par for the course -- he has made such comments himself.

"Chuck Darwin" left the following comment in response to an Austin-American Statesman news article:
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I love it when the whining fundies so easily slip on their victim caps. McLeroy wasn’t slurred because of his religion. He was REJECTED because of dysfunctional leadership and bullying that crossed way beyond the pale. The State Board of Education did serious damage both to its own reputation and to public education in Texas under this small man’s small-minded chairmanship. He deserves a much more severe *****-slapping than this, and I hope to see it delivered the next time this rockhead is up for election. I can not imagine being a patient of an idiot like McLeroy who believes in and propounds a creationist fantasy of biology over a scientific one. I wish him much ill and much harm.

Your comment contains "bullying that crossed way beyond the pale," bozo.

The Texas senate Democrats who voted nearly unanimously (11 votes with one abstention) against McLeroy ought to see the kind of bigots that they are pandering to.
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McLeroy rejected by Texas Senate

The Texas state Senate voted 19-11 to deny confirmation of Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas state board of education. The vote fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority -- or 21 votes -- needed for confirmation. One of the senators -- who was present -- did not vote (there is a total of 31 senators). The voting was strictly along party lines -- all the votes for confirmation came from Republicans and all against came from Democrats. At least the Darwinists can't call McLeroy's rejection "bipartisan." Details -- including a description of the debate -- are on the Texas Freedom Network blog. link

McLeroy did a number of bad or questionable things as chairman of the Texas SBOE, but I think that the main public perception will be that he was rejected because he dared to question evolution theory. I think that his rejection will backfire on the Darwinists because it will make him into a martyr. His rejection will be seen as another example of the persecution of evolution critics that is shown in Ben Stein's movie "Expelled."

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