The Politics of Distortion in Texas K–12 History

The Texas Freedom Network released a report in 2008 on “The State Board of Education: Dragging Texas Schools into the Culture Wars.” Interestingly, in January the State Board of Education will be in the middle of revising the state’s social studies and history curriculum standards — standards that even the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has called a “politicized distortion of history” with “misrepresentations at every turn.” In fact, it is because of those standards that Texas now has social studies textbooks that tell students Moses was a major influence on the writing of the U.S. Constitution and that the roots of Western democracy are found in the Old Testament. Clearly, the issue of ethnic studies courses has been terribly problematic at the State Board of Education, which remains to be seen in the coming years.