I am sick to my stomach

…after reading this report on Texas conservatives changing the high school curriculum. Did I ever mention that I hate Texas and don’t want to live there? Unfortunately though, I am moving there in six months. I am thankful that I don’t have any kids or I would have homeschooled them. Seriously. Otherwise I would have sent them to India to study or something.

I don’t get it. How and why the politician gets the authority on high school curriculum? (We have similar problems in India though not this severe). According to the report:

There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings..

Hmmm..interesting. So if you are in power, you can rewrite the facts to suite your convenience? To hell with people who spent their life studying these subjects. What do they know?

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Question Darwin’s theory of evolution? Someone has to fight to preserve the teaching of Darwinism? Was time travel invented and was I transported to the era of bigotry when they denounced Galileo and Copernican theory as heresy? On that topic, I am not sure why didn’t the board change the curriculum to include the bible’s view about astronomy that Earth is flat and it is the center of universe? Too far fetched? Scared that even 10 year olds will laugh at them if they say something like that? As far as I am concerned, questioning the Darwin’s theory is exactly the same.

But then they have privilege to believe in what they want, don’t they? They won’t believe in carbon dating as it proves Darwinism, however they will believe in X-rays. Convenient, eh? If you don’t believe in radiations and the fact that we can count how old a bone is based on ratio of product and source then you don’t get to believe in it’s other applications as well. But then they are in the power (for some unknown reason). That’s why they can do this too:

They also included a plank to ensure that students 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.”

Does anyone sense anything here (well you would need to know about these people and organization to understand. feel free to click on wiki link)? No? Let’s see:

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

Did you notice how they put sexuality right in middle of the other genuine  problems as teenage suicide, drug use, dating violence and eating disorders? And notice how they worded it as “life choices” and how it is a “personal responsibility”? Oh, you catch my drift. And yes, they will teach that in high schools in Texas because the experts in sociology says so. Oh no wait, they never studied sociology or human behavior or sexuality. But they studied bible and that makes them expert in science, sociology, human behavior and history. Right? My question is: why not get rid of all the other textbooks and just have one book in school curriculum: bible. It anyways make anyone and everyone an expert in all existing subject then what’s the point of studying anything else? Abolish schools and universities altogether. What’s the point in loading the mind of these youngsters with anything else?

And no, they didn’t forget racism? No. How can they?

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

…

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

Do you know why they are doing that? Well here is what they say:

“We are adding balance,” said Dr. Don McLeroy, the leader of the conservative faction on the board, after the vote. “History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left. ” (Emphasis Mine)

Did you know “believing” in Darwinism is a political choice and not a scientific conviction?

Yes. I am moving to Texas in six months after spending six years in wonderful San Francisco bay area. And no, I am not looking forward to it.