This kind of stuff is happening with alarming frequency

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My public education was very right-wing. My teachers were largely creationists, pro-war, pro-life, etc.

I can see Dox's point, as it is likely the case that a lot of this is pushback. I would have to say that I think that some of the rightwing changes are bad on intellectual grounds, but obviously not all though such as the inclusion of information justifying McCarthyism in the Cold War, or bringing up free market economists such as Hayek or Friedman(I am not sure if it is mentioned here but it was mentioned in other places talking about the story).

I do think that the last comment about "regulation" is wrong-headed though. The state is the purchaser. This isn't a regulatory policy so much as a purchasing decision in terms of governmental contracts. The fact that Texas was a major purchaser has been known for a long period of time.

You went to school in Ohio IIRC? Needless to say your experience there differed dramatically from mine in Seattle, but I've seen you reference the poll data showing a preponderance of educators being politically liberal, so I know that you're aware that your situation was far from common. I'm certainly not saying that conservative thought is completely missing from the education system, but that it's badly underrepresented in relation to liberal ideas.

Professors are overwhelmingly liberal, public high school teachers are different. I'll grant that they are probably more liberal outside of Ohio, but I doubt it's completely unbalanced. In any case, a neutral, objective education will definitely not lead people to support the Republican party. As I'm sure you are aware, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

They are different, but they are generally more liberal. They tend to be unionized government employees. That will tend to impact their biases.

I wouldn't say that reality has a liberal bias. (And yes, I know that this is going back to a Colbert joke)

I would say it actually does, at least if you are regarding American conservatism as the alternative.

It is a rather distorted point of view to consider the total Bible pseudo-scientific BS on an equal intellectual plane with actual scientific discovery that has revolutionized the world.

I don't think the wingnuts at the Huffington Post are as dangerous as all that.

I mean, sure, they're probably wrong about Jefferson being a Deist - Jefferson himself claimed to be Christian - but it's probably just wishful thinking. Jefferson may have disbelieved in some of the miracles reported by the apostles, but so do lots of nonfundamentalist Christians. No one is likely to fall for the Huffington Post's apparent belief that all Christians are fundamentalists that believe in the literal truth of every word in some English version of the bible. If the Post were worried about George Washington, who probably was a deist, it might be different - but probably not, since Washington left the philosophy behind the American Revolution to the real philosophers, rather than writing things that added little to their works as Jefferson did.

Now, it's true that the natural American urge is to ignore any important portions of history that happened outside the U.S., so the Post might be more successful at keeping students from learning about the reformation and associated philosophers like Aquinas and Calvin. Still, they are sufficiently politically correct that they probably don't really want to ignore the entire rest of the world, so those portions of the curriculum would be more likely replaced by other often neglected parts of overseas history - perhaps less politically volatile subjects such as some history of China or Japan.

As for the Post's desire to suppress the idea that the U.S. government is fundamentally based on our constitution, I doubt they'll be successful at turning the U.S. to the banana republic style of democracy such have at times been common in Latin America. Too many people understand the difference between a democracy with a strong Constitution to protect people's rights by limiting the power of the government, and one where a dictatorship of the majority prevails. The Huffington Post's desire to keep students ignorant of economics will hopefully be unsuccessful as well.

Jefferson was more of a deist than anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_religion

I don't consider the Bible to be anything more than an overwritten fantasy epic, and nowhere in my post do I even mention it, let alone hold it equal to the discoveries of science. What I said is that one ideology has had defacto control of the education system for many years, and I don't have too much of a problem that their political foes have decided to push back.

Ouch.

Tim_Tex, I'm sure you said this out of strong emotion. Obviously something happened in your life to make you think badly of Christians. And I'm sure you're quite justified to be angry about whatever happened.

I'm a Christian, and I'm one of those Christians who wants to see all the whacko bigot hypocritical pedophile creeps stripped of the label and sent where they belong--Oklahoma.

I mean. We're not *all* bigots. Some of us really do just want peace.

I haven't used a textbook in any of my classes besides psych and biology. I think I've learned the foundations of the no textbook classes better than the textbook classes.

I grew up in Texas. The textbooks are already awful and don't tell you s**t. Most of my history is what I've learned well outside of class. And it took me a while as I was basically re-learning everything, but I realized just how incredibly biased they already were.

Texan public education is genuinely awful by design. Thank god for those dedicated teachers out there.

Oh dear. The Texas Board of Education is at it yet again.

But the US is a republic. Why is it wrong to teach that it is?

At it again 5 years ago...