Well here is some possibly good news, stuck all the way at the bottom of the article I missed it the first time:
“Keep in mind that whether Clinton and Keller or the Alamo defenders are in the standards specifically doesn’t mean students won’t learn about them. Teachers and textbooks can and will still teach about them,” [Dan]] Quinn [with the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network] said.
So while not mentioned in the standards, they could still be covered.
I do agree with this guys 2nd point:
"But focusing on disagreements over those details obscures the important problem that the board isn’t even getting the big ideas right because they’re more interested in using the standards to promote their personal and political beliefs.”
Once again, this isn’t about liking her or not, but SHE IS THE FIRST WOMAN TO BE THE CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT FOR A MAJOR PARTY. She was the secretary of state, first lady, and a political actor in her own right. It’s not unreasonable, for those reasons, to include her in a study of AMERICAN history.
There’s a slow-edit tactic on Wikipedia, pioneered by Jossi Fresco, where you take anything in an article that you don’t like, especially in the lede, and move it into a criticism section.
Now that there’s a single target, try a few anonymous drive-by deletions. If that doesn’t work, propose a separate article for the criticism, and immediately move it all there. After a while, propose merging the two articles back, and delete the criticism article without doing any merging.
Having a separate section would make it easier to skip if the class was running behind, or reasons.
There are, but if we’re picking nits, this isn’t one of those who should be left out.
But it is. This is stage one of erasure: knowing whom and what to leave out when you teach kids.
The “I didn’t pay attention in social studies” argument also doesn’t scale well. We look things up when we don’t remember, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be taught in the first place.
You also don’t know who that will inspire or influence.
The 15-member work group came up with a rubric for grading every historical figure to rank who is “essential” to learn and who isn’t. The formula asked questions like, “Did the person trigger a watershed change”; “Was the person from an underrepresented group”; and “Will their impact stand the test of time?”
Out of 20 points, Keller scored a 7 and Clinton scored a 5. By contrast, local members of the Texas Legislature (whom fourth-graders learn about) got a perfect score, as did Barbara Jordan, Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin and Henry B. González.
Because we know that every local legislator in Texas is a making a major, timeless impact.
You’re missing the most obvious thing. The metal is still molten, it not “History” at all yet. More people in Texas know Hilary Clinton than no anything about say Jimmy Carter. ( Granted it’s probably a bunch of talk radio hate spiel, but no one is forgetting ol Hilary anytime soon)
History is mostly about dead people…
Let’s hope the fact that a woman ran for office is the what they’re talking about in 50 years, because it’ll be an insignificant sidenote if Trumpski brings the mushroom clouds.
Goldwater didn’t like the Republican reach out to the christian fundamentalists.
He said (probably correctly) that it would cause the downfall of the Republicans.
IMHO: That’s why they cut him out.
His words:
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
Don’t worry, Donald keeps her and Obama current by bashing them almost daily. Same goes for right wing media outlets.
Unfortunately we won’t be able to erase Donald either.
And it was a merging of his Libertarianism and the religious right which gave rise to the modern GOP, ironically enough.
It’s very strange that he’s been cut, given his actual influence on the modern GOP, but give his views on the rise of fundamentalism, that seems a likely explanation. But again, I think this very much illustrates the larger problem here - that political actors are making these decisions, not trained historians.
Lots of people were, and it wasn’t all of the “let’s keep the races separate” types. As much as it’s a fully debunked field, there were a variety of beliefs that related to eugenics, and not all of them lead to genocide. Margaret Sanger also advocated for a eugenicist view of reproductive health, but she also worked with African American community in regards to family planning in the black community, including advocating for more nurses and doctors in the black community.
Her exclusion is another case of a historically disenfranchised community being excluded from the historical narrative, in this case people with disabilities.
i forgive you in advance for not being a teacher as i tell you that the curriculum documents called the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or teks, are generally crammed so full that it is a literal race against time to complete them in any class. rare indeed will be the teacher who goes far beyond the outlines of the teks.
if you go through all of the bios there are 9 people who either have been teachers or who have been education consultants in a variety of capacities. the other 6 range from a chiropractor to a lawyer to one fellow who placed prominent emphasis on his eagle scout status. the vice chair, a lawyer, was one of the people who worked tirelessly to force the state to abandon a curriculum service they had spent a lot of money developing and promoting primarily because he and his allies in the texas legislature had worse reading comprehension skills than my worst students (i know the hypothesis that they were deliberately misreading the curriculum is much more likely but i prefer to regard them as ignoramuses because it captures the nature of the arguments they used better). the board is majority republican and makes the decision to leave out hilary seem much more political than on the basis of historical relevance.
as @Mindysan33 has already pointed out there were a lot of different flavors of eugenics at the time which were believed in by a depressingly high percentage of the populace at the time. that by itself is not a make or break point one way or the other.
Agreed - and I was being more facetious than anything.
AFAICT her brand of eugenics was the “weed out all the lesser stock” type versus the “racial purity” type. Still awful (and ironic) but as you and @Mindysan33 has noted it was all the rage at the time. It doesn’t overshadow all the good work she did - it’s more of a depressing footnote IMO.
Not to mention that one party in the past few decades has made a regular practice of disparaging public education and intellectuals more generally as part of their rhetoric. It tends not to be the democratic party.
Using Hillary’s gender as a reason she should be in a history book is just as egregious as using it as a reason she should have been president. She’s either qualified or not qualified. If she’s qualified, so be it. If she’s not qualified, but you have to say “but she’s a woman,” that’s effing horrible.
Same with Barack. It’s far less important that he was the first black president. He was The President. No need to include his race or gender to make him important. There’s no “Hey Dave, should we include Barrack in history books?” “Well Bob, he was black.” “Good point!”
To be fair, if the history subject is race or gender, then the mention of Hillary being the first woman candidate or Barack being the first black president, is logical. If those are being studied, then including Hillary’s gender or Barack’s race as notable historical figures would be absolutely relevant. Yet I suspect those are not focus topics in Texas education. In which case, maybe arguing to expand race and gender study is more important than worrying if Hillary (a single person) isn’t studied. i.e. treat the problem instead of the symptom.
She was a hell of a lot more qualified than Trump.
But nobody was talking about qualifications, so well done with your straw man.
Sometimes learning about the losers in history can be even more informative and enlightening than learning about the winners. Henry Wallace for example is a million times more interesting than Harry fucking Truman but you’ll probably never read more than a sentence or two about him in the history books.
