The State Board of Education Revisits Curriculum Reform
On March 12 Texas State Board of Education15 elected officials ten of them Republican and five Democratrecommended over 100 changes to a draft of K-12 social studies standards prepared by a team of teachers scholars and curriculum specialists in 2009. Reaction to the recommendations was swift and sharply divided.
The Boards critics charged that many of the changes were politically driven and others factually wrong and that the revisions were part of a culture war" waged by religious conservatives on the SBOE.
Don McLeroy former Board Chair and a vocal supporter of the changes defended the historical accuracy of the changes adding that conservatives were attempting to balance
a pervasive and long-standing liberal bias in history textbooks. The Board will take final action on the standards on May 21.
On April 7 at 3 p.m. in the AVAYA Auditorium (ACES 2.302) on the University of Texas campus philosophy professor Dan Bonevac and mathematics professor Lorenzo Sadun will debate whether the standards the Board has recommended are reasonable. Joy Alvarado a member of the Texas IP Fellows student leadership panel will moderate. The event is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Texas IP Fellows program the debate is the third in a series of Texas Chautauquas named after the freewheeling educational roadshows popular a century ago.
The battle over the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) has implications beyond Texas. Every ten years the SBOE reviews the K-12 curriculum standards in one of several academic areas and determines the material and skills to be included in the standardized tests given to students. The Board also reviews and adopts proposed textbooks for each grade level.
Textbook publishers who wish to sell in Texas one of the countrys largest buyers of textbooks must demonstrate that their books cover the specified material. Since it is expensive to publish two versions of the same textbookone for Texas one for other statesmost publishers work hard to meet the Boards requirements.
The history thats deemed acceptable in Texas can thus become the history thats taught in New York.
Today many worry that the nations textbooks will soon reflect the conservative convictions of most of Texas Board.
While the Texas Education Agency hasnt published the 100-plus amendments that the Board endorsed in March many of the more controversial amendments have received
prominent coverage from The New York Times The Atlantic Fox News and dozens of other major media outlets.
Among the most-discussed:
- the Boards substitution of John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas for Thomas Jefferson in a world history standard on important Enlightenment thinkers;
- its requirement that high school students study communist infiltration in the U.S. government after World War II;
- the mandated substitution of free enterprise for capitalism (two Republican Board members claimed that the latter was a negative term); and
- the rejection of a Democratic Board members proposal that high school students examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others.
The faculty participants in the third Texas Chautauqua are award-winning teachers and distinguished authors. Daniel Bonevacs research focuses on the intersection of metaphysics philosophical logic and ethics. His first book Reduction in the Abstract Sciences received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy.
In addition to numerous articles he has written four other booksDeduction The Art and Science of Logic Simple Logic and Worldly Wisdom. At UT he teaches courses in philosophical logic metaphysics ethics cognitive science Non-Western philosophy and Christian philosophy.
Lorenzo Sadun has been a math professor at the University of Texas since 1991. In addition to dozens of articles he has written two books Applied Linear Algebra: The Decoupling Principle and Topology of Tiling Spaces. He has taught courses on statistics probability algebra calculus topology and mathematical modeling for biologists.
Dr. Sadun has testified before the State Board of Education on several occasions and in 2009 he was a candidate for the Board before withdrawing in deference to the current Democratic candidate Judy Jennings.
The first Texas Chautauqua in March 2009 featured a debate between Biology professor Arturo DeLozanne and Philosophy professor Rob Koons on last years SBOE controversy: whether evolution should be taught as settled science or as a tentative theory with both strengths and weaknesses.
The second Chautauqua featured Classics professor Thomas Palaima and Law Professor Lino Graglia arguing the positive and negative influences of college football on American universities.
