TXBoE vs Thos. Jefferson (update)

According to one of Rick Perry's underlings--from whom I received an email thanking me for accusing Perry of treason (heh...)--this whole school book curriculum issue was blown out of proportion and Thomas Jefferson will remain part of 5th grade, 8th grade, and high school curriculums, even though the State Board of Education removed Jefferson from the world history standards. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at their meetings, instead some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

They (Perry, the secessionist, et al) say this whole issue was blown out of proportion by Perry's opponent for Governor, Bill White. You could almost accept that, except that the other changes to the curriculum follow a definite agenda:

-- they cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (hello?) 

-- called into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution. “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative board member from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.” 

-- mandated a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association. 

-- required a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Hmmm, will they study about fundamentalists bombing abortion clinics? Murdering doctors who perform abortions? Probably not) 

-- passed an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. 

-- passed  an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism. 

-- passed an amendment requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States. 

-- when an amendment was proposed that required students study the reasons the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others, it was defeated along party lines. 

-- the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the "free-enterprise system." 

-- an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.