Folks:
This issue is so important. I live in North Carolina, and I've already seen how the radical right is trying to reshape America: through our schools. In Wake County, voter apathy led to the school board being overtaken by segregationists who voted away long-standing diversity policies in favor of, ahem, "neighborhood schools."
District by district -- that's one way the righties will infiltrate our schools, indoctrinating and discriminating wherever they can. And recent decisions made in Texas to rewrite history in textbooks has horrifying national implications for decades to come.
You all know what I'm talking about:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Teachers in Texas will be required to cover the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers, but not highlight the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state. Curriculum standards also will describe the U.S. government as a "constitutional republic," rather than "democratic," and students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard....
Decisions by the board -- made up of lawyers, a dentist and a weekly newspaper publisher among others -- can affect textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers' biggest clients.
By late Thursday night, three other Democrats seemed to sense their futility and left, leaving Republicans to easily push through amendments heralding "American exceptionalism" and the U.S. free enterprise system, suggesting it thrives best absent excessive government intervention....
In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class.
Conservatives beat back multiple attempts to include hip-hop as an example of a significant cultural movement...
Numerous attempts to add the names or references to important Hispanics throughout history also were denied, inducing one amendment that would specify that Tejanos died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Another amendment deleted a requirement that sociology students "explain how institutional racism is evident in American society."
I have joined a Facebook page to fight back against this ultraconservative movement to radicalize and dumb down our schools, and I invite all to do the same.
http://www.facebook.com/...
And I'd like to hear some other battle plans from commenters.
Thanks
Nord