How Public schools are key influencers in the culture war"; 3rd in Continuing Series on New Book
By Bill Ames
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas The impact of biased public education on impressionable high school students is a key contributor to the decades-long decline of our culture in America. Such early
indoctrination gives leftists a head start" in furthering their agenda to portray America to our kids as an oppressive exploitative racist imperialistic country.
They attempt to indoctrinate students that there is no social justice" that opportunities for all do not exist and that increased dependency on a socialist/Marxist government is the solution to the environment of victimization" that they use to characterize America.
Recently I viewed the documentary
Agenda: Grinding America Down created by former Utah state legislator Curtis Bowers.
Agenda tells the story of how socialist and Marxist interests are incrementally taking over America.
In the documentary Phyllis Schlafly founder and president of Eagle Forum makes a significant comment. Ms. Schlafly said Public schools are the greatest cultural influencers in our country".
Further in describing the purpose for writing his
New York Times best seller
A Patriots History of the United States Dr. Larry Schweikart wrote about how the story of American History has drifted leftward for the past half century:
Deliberate revisionism by leftist textbook author experts has been coupled with the steady assault of race class and gender topics. As the result the true story of American exceptionalism has been replaced with oppressed/oppressor scholarship creating an unmistakably leftist and negative bias in American history textbooks."
Then this week at a reception in Dallas Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) President and CEO Brooke Rollins commented There is a war for our soul and culture being fought in America". Ms. Rollins also announced the appointment of Tom Lindsay to lead a new TPPF Center for Higher Education as the organization gears up to deal with
expanding education issues in Texas. Mr. Lindsay has excellent credentials having previously been president of Shimer College in Chicago.
Schlafly Schweikart and Rollins are all correct in their assessment and opinions about education. Our students are not focused on academics rather they are indoctrinated by the vast leftist network of liberal educators who are determined to change American culture.
Not long ago at the Texas Education Agency (TEA) Region 10 location in Richardson TX a class was conducted to qualify potential teachers to earn their teaching certificates. One candidate found an item in the teaching materials that read ….teachers must not define education as basic skills….Rather as educators we must help people become committed to social change".
Confronted by the whistleblower embarrassed Region 10 administrators removed the item. But it is clear that similar attempts to indoctrinate go unnoticed.
My book tells the story about how the Texas State Board of Education approved state-level U.S. history standards in May 2010. After a contentious debate late nineteenth-century United States was defined in the standards as expansionist" rather than the negative leftist view imperialist".
However one year after this standard took effect my local school district is still teaching our kids that the U.S. is an imperialist country.
A spokesman for the Texas Education Agency reveals that the TEA has no process to ensure local districts curriculum compliance with state standards.
Therefore only parents and taxpayers acting at the local level can head off such obvious attempts to indoctrinate our students with anti-American propaganda.
The culture war rages on in Texas. Eagle Forum the Texas Public Policy Foundation and author Dr. Schweikart confirm that the culture war exists.
But the very term culture war" requires specific examples to ensure complete understanding. What is the nature of the battles being fought? What are the lefts strategies and tactics?
My book
TEXAS TROUNCES THE LEFTS WAR ON HISTORY tells the story about a specific skirmish in the war on our culture. The book tells how in 2009 and 2010 leftists attempted to hijack the U.S. history standards and how conservative SBOE members with the support of hundreds of mainstream Texans rejected the attempt.
Please visit my booth at the Texas Republican Convention on June 7-9 to learn more about this battle in the culture war. Look for the giant five foot by six foot banner of the books cover illustration.
I look forward to seeing you there.
Bill Ames is an education activist who lives in Dallas. He has worked on Texas curriculum and textbook issues beginning in 2001. He spent much of 2009 as a member of the review panel for U. S. history. Ames book can be ordered at www.WNAenterprises.com.
