Has anyone else been tracking this?

Texas Textbook Critics Just Can't Handle the Truth
By Kelly Shackelford

Published June 04, 2010

Unbelievably, the battle over the Texas social studies standards, which could impact most of the nation, is not over. The process and rules required a final vote on the standards, and the board completed the process.

However, now California has passed a law seeking to bar textbooks adhering to Texas’ educational standards from the state, and liberal editorial boards both in the state and across the country are advocating for every stonewalling technique available to keep the standards from going into effect, even suggesting delaying the purchase of new textbooks.

Why? Misinformation about the board and the new social studies standards continue to spread like wildfire, ensuring that this battle will ensue for months, if not years, to come.

“You can’t handle the truth!” This is not only a famous line from a movie, but it’s also a perfect line to describe the unbalanced attacks on Texas State Board of Education members after their passage of good American history and social studies standards for students.

Some critics alleged that the board removed Thomas Jefferson from the standards. That was flatly untrue; unfortunately, many newspapers across the country printed this falsehood without bothering to check the facts. The truth? Jefferson is in the standards five times, second in prominence only to George Washington, and the Declaration of Independence he authored appears another 25 times.

Some argued that slavery was removed and renamed something more “flattering.” False. Slavery is covered numerous times in the standards. One national television host even had to apologize on-air when she looked at the standards and realized she’d been misled on the issue by groups whose goal in spreading this misinformation was to attack the board.

Some of the most attention-grabbing headlines on this issue accused the board of intentionally diminishing women and minorities, which was another contortion propagated by groups seeking only to breed discontent. The truth – numerous civil rights, minority leaders and women were added to the standards – more than ever before by far. The board included Hillary Clinton, Barbara Jordan, Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall, Dolores Huerta, Sonia Sotomayor, Martin Luther King, Jr., the study of Brown v. Board of Education, and many more.

Opponents even argued that Texas is anti-religious freedom because students will now compare and contrast the words “separation of church and state” with the actual words of the Constitution. That truly takes the cake. Reading the Constitution – what a concept! One newspaper, surely intending to appear as a bastion of educational brilliance, used that as their example of the board’s “overreach,” even though this addition to the standards passed by an 11-3 bipartisan vote.

rest of the article:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/...boycott-delay/