Publishers Resist Pressure to Undermine Evolution in Texas Science Textbooks | Hacker News Reader

Publishers Resist Pressure to Undermine Evolution in Texas Science Textbooks

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48 pointscpleppert12 comments

Evolution is not the only thing they have been diluting. They have been removing hispanics, racism, and hip-hop from the history curriculum for years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/texas-education-boa...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?_r=...

It's disconcerting how fast the state has gone downhill. I went to high school there 1996-2000, and it was a reasonably sane place. George W. Bush was governor, but in his pre-presidency years, he was basically a moderate conservative. The school I went to was pretty reasonable, and apart from the somewhat eyebrow-raising exception of Ayn Rand being required reading in English class, and the generic patriotic skew in the U.S. History curriculum that you'd get anywhere in the U.S., the curriculum seemed pretty middle-of-the-road.

At some point in the early 2000s, though, the place got taken over by some kind of hodge-podge of far-right nutjobs. I don't think I would send my kids to school in Texas, nowadays.

I graduated from a Texas high school in 2008 (brain fart, original said 2012). We didn't read Ayn Rand or anything right-wing, no one pushed evolution and the education I received was 100x better than that of the high school I first attended in California (a school which just cancelled all AP classes).

Of the students from my CA high school, only a few went on to college from what I've gleaned off Facebook. Almost everyone from my graduating class in Texas did so. Education was actually valued (and funded!) in stark contrast to the first school.

I, for one, am incredibly glad I switched to that Texas school.

Looking at this article & the comment from jared314[1], do you think they taught enough history about America's relationship with Hispanics and racism? Did they talk about evolution as a "fact" or in the context of some "crazy idea"? Did they talk about slavery in the context of a "great sin" or just something like "oops, well water under the bridge"[2]? And finally, were there any african-americans or other minorities in your school? Are their opinions about Texas school system almost always different from your own, or roughly the same, or no notable difference from non-minorities?

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6578954

2. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/water+under+the+bridge

Sorry, brain fart. I meant 2008. I graduated from college in 2012. In any case, I didn't take a Texas state history course. Slavery was certainly covered in the US history course (and I got an extra dose as I participated in Academic Decathlon the year they chose the Civil War as their topic).

As a graduate from a Texas high school (2000), I can also say I did not see the outright "religiosity". But, according to my parents, I attended one of the better schools, in a good school district. I also remember understanding enough science to openly laugh at the people pushing those beliefs socially. So, there might be some observer bias in my experiences.

(To add on to my reply now that the edit window has closed)

The school I attended is 41% minority [1] with a significant international contingent. Only two of the top ten in my graduating class were American and one of those two was an economically disadvantaged Hispanic girl (and my ex-girlfriend). Slavery was treated as America's original sin and we covered race in America in more detail than most schools (we used the exact same US History textbook used in every AP course [2]). Our literature and rhetoric courses covered writings by Frederick Douglass and MLK Jr. in extreme detail.

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/public-ed/explore/katy-isd/seven... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Pageant

> no one pushed evolution

Could you clarify - does this mean that you were or weren't taught evolution?

I was not taught creationism.

Nor was I told to read Ayn Rand.

Nor was I taught to sympathize with the War of Northern Aggression.

> Education was actually valued.

> I was not taught evolution.

... Could I ask how you reconcile these two statements?

To give you some idea of where I'm coming from, I'm British, where we tend to feel quite proud of Darwin (1). As far as I can tell, evolution is a fact of the universe, and the foundational idea in many of the biological sciences. The idea someone could come out of education (and feel they've been well-educated) without a grounding in evolution makes me confused.

(1) eg http://currencyguide.eu/gbp-en/10gbp-en.html

> ... Could I ask how you reconcile these two statements?

Yes, that's what happens when I post before having any coffee. Fixed.

Ah! That makes much more sense. Thank you :)

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