Satvika Ananth
Staff Writer

Every 10 years, the Texas State Board of Education rewrites the standards to which public school textbooks are held, and this time, it is taking a step towards rewriting our history.

The primary issue with many of the over 100 amendments the board passed on March 12 is the blatantly unbalanced reasoning used to produce the changes. Very few attempts were made by the 15-person board, of which 10 are Republican and five Democratic, to even pretend they had the best interests of education in mind.

Instead, their obvious aim was to increase the conservative aspects of American history, since, as board member Don McElroy from Bryan said, according to the New York Times, “academia is skewed too far to the left.”  

They have, in essence, created a highly partisan educational system. For example, the board has added a plank requiring students to 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.”

While adding conservative elements to textbooks may be logical, considering the bipartisan nature of this country, several of these particular additions to history are detrimental to the educational system. By adding more of Phyllis Schlafly, who was staunchly against the concept of women moving outside of the sphere of domesticity, the board is associating the conservative resurgence with anti-feminist, anti-equal right thought. Not only is this illogical, it is also extremely archaic.

The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, is a privately funded, conservative think tank group. What can textbooks hope to gain in educational value by bringing this group to the forefront, particularly when there is no liberal think tank group to balance it?

And then perhaps the most aggravating of all changes: the board has deemed Thomas Jefferson an unnecessary part of Enlightenment history, referring to the time period when revolutionary thoughts emerged among European and American scholars. Jefferson, the same man who, besides writing the Declaration of Independence, is part of the fabric of republican idealism worldwide, is no longer viewed by the Texas State Board of Education as a necessary historical figure in world history because he supported the same secular ideas the board so wishes to move away from.

And who exactly is on this board? For one, Dr. Don McElroy. Dr. McElroy is a dentist. His only credentials toward education are that he has served on the Bryan Independent School District Board of Trustees, and teaches fourth grade Sunday school. Yet, these threadbare merits are apparently enough for him to become a part of the committee making changes which will affect the education of students in Texas for years to come.

In fact, only four of the 15 board members have taught in public schools at some point in their lives. What exactly gives them the experience to make such decisions?

Additionally, the board has made no secret of their attempts to supposedly “Christianize” the educational system when it comes to social studies. Claiming there is no constitutional evidence that the founding fathers wanted anything but a Christian America, board members chose not to require students to learn “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”

Regardless of my purportedly liberal education, the facts remain clear. The First Amendment of the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In essence, Congress shall not associate itself with religion. What does the board of education gain by not  including that clause?

To me, it becomes a statement that Texas does not believe government and church should be separate, since, as board member David Bradley said in the New York Times, he rejects “the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state.” How can the board support such statements, when this is contradictory to the truth of American society and government today?

You may ask why any of this even matters. How much can a few changes in a few textbooks really affect the nation? Unfortunately for the rest of the nation, Texas  is the largest textbook purchaser in the nation, making up 80 percent of the textbook market. Thus, textbook publishers tend to write their texts based on Texas standards, hoping to become one of the state-recommended publishers. Where the Texas school board goes, America follows. This issue does not merely affect Texas high school students but those across the country

There’s something I am certain about, regardless of which history book it comes from. Every empire, every nation, and every civilization waxes and wanes. We can never know what precisely the future holds for America, what turns the American story will take, but while we have the chance, let’s at least get the story right.