Did You Hear About Those Idiot Christians In Texas?
Can you believe it? Those conservative Christian idiots on the Texas Board of Education don’t want kids to learn about Thomas Jefferson. They don’t like his politics, so they’re pulling him right out of the curriculum! So says the NY Times:
Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)
Yep, those Texans are just writing him out of history, so they can make the theocratic future they always wanted.
That bothered me when I read it the other day. It doesn’t look good, but worse, it’s just obviously the wrong thing to do.
Then I read this from board chair Gail R. Lowe. (I should have known better from the beginning.)
It did not take long for reverberations from the Texas State Board of Education’s preliminary vote on Social Studies requirements to spread across the country. And predictably, the media coverage was woefully inaccurate and blatantly distorted.
The New York Times probably was not the first to report on the board’s deliberations, but it joined a host of prominent Texas news outlets that incorrectly claimed Thomas Jefferson had been dropped from the curriculum framework used in Texas public schools.
Apart from Thomas Jefferson, the only historical figure with more emphasis in the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills standards is George Washington. The State Board of Education expects students at the elementary-grade level, in middle school and again in high school to study these Founding Fathers and to be well-versed in their contributions to American history and government.
Thomas Jefferson is included along with John Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Nathan Hale, the Sons of Liberty and George Washington as Founding Fathers and patriot heroes that Texas fifth-graders should study for their notable contributions during the Revolutionary period.
During Grade 8, in which the history of the United States from the early colonial period through Reconstruction is presented, the Social Studies TEKS framework requires students to explain the roles played by the following significant individuals: Abigail Adams, John Adams, Wentworth Cheswell, Samuel Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, James Armistead, Benjamin Franklin, Bernardo de Galvez, Crispus Attucks, King George III, Haym Salomon, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Paine and George Washington.
The U.S. Government course required for high school graduation mandates that students “identify the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, George Mason, Roger Sherman and James Wilson on the development of the U.S. government.”
In addition, high school students must “identify significant individuals in the field of government and politics, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan.”
To say the State Board of Education has excluded Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum framework is irresponsible and untruthful. Jefferson not only penned the words of the Declaration of Independence, served as the third President of the United States and was father of the University of Virginia, but his promotion of the ideals of states’ rights and a limited federal government have permeated our nation for centuries. No study of American history would be complete without his inclusion. That is why Thomas Jefferson warrants such strong emphasis in the TEKS standards the State Board of Education has approved.
A critical skill Texas students should develop as part of their education is the ability to analyze information from primary source documents. This should be a requirement for journalists, too. Many seem to have jumped to erroneous conclusions without even examining the actual curriculum standards. One can disagree ideologically with the State Board of Education, but the TEKS standards themselves should be the point of reference for objective, thorough reporting.
Speaking of critical reading…the NY Times didn’t say Jefferson was cut everywhere, it said he was cut from a world history course’s list of figures that inspired revolutions. What Lowe said does not contradict the NY Times quote you posted, and what you quoted from Lowe does not even address the question of why Jefferson was cut from this list, let alone defend the decision, etc.
A fuller story…Lowe’s essay was a dodge…
http://tfninsider.org/2010/03/19/dunbars-distorted-views-on-jefferson/
Apart from the author’s impressive credentials (he is forthrightly identified as “Dan,” perhaps Dan Quinn?) that article’s credibility suffers seriously from this, Nick:
What’s a religious extremist, and if Dan is going to call plaster that terminology on an elected official, don’t you suppose he’s promoting an ideological agenda himself? Further, if Dan is going to try to correct the way World History is taught, maybe he should demonstrate that he knows some of it. The “Dark Ages” term has been deprecated by historians for decades—it’s misleading, or even completely inaccurate—and Aquinas and Calvin actually were two of the most influential persons in European history. Maybe it’s the ideology flowing from his irreligious extremism
that makes him want that history buried.
Anyway, both the Times and the impressive Dan say conservatives don’t like Jefferson because he coined the term, “separation of church and state.” Maybe some conservatives have said that; what I’ve heard more often is dislike for modern misinterpretations of that terminology. Jefferson doesn’t get the blame.
But that’s what the Times wants us to think about conservatives, so they roll out whatever slim evidence they can find for it. They completely ignore the context, the balancing perspective that no one but George Washington is emphasized in Texas history standards more than Jefferson. If they had included that true statement in their report, it would have been awfully difficult to lead readers to their desired conclusion that conservatives don’t like Jefferson.
By the way, Jefferson was a small-government guy. Do you really think the Times got their assessment on conservatives right?
Tom,
Maybe you could explain how Aquinas and Calvin had more influence on the political revolutions from 1750 to present than did Jefferson.
This doesn’t mean much in a vacuum. What does the board’s curriculum standard say we to understand about their contribution? That’s what the board needs to defend.
And the Times still needs to explain why it misrepresented conservative Christians so. That’s the error that’s right open, before our eyes.
Tom,
I don’t see how the New York Times misrepresented anything. The passage you cited above explicitly mentioned in which context Jefferson’s name was removed. It did not make the sweeping claim Lowe attributed to it. The outrage is completely manufactured.
The Times said “conservatives don’t like Jefferson…” which is wrong; it said that their cutting Jefferson out of the curriculum was indicative of this, which must also be false if the first was; and they failed to balance their report with relevant facts. It was clearly intended to make the conservatives look Neanderthal. It was biased and obviously agenda-driven reporting, with the effect of creating a mistaken impression.
Further on “I don’t see how the New York Times misrepresented anything.”
True/False: “Conservatives on the board don’t like Jefferson.”
In your answer please be sure to show how you know this to be true, and how you think they decided to give him such a high place in U.S. history in spite of their not liking him.
Tom,
Please go back and reread the New York Times article. It didn’t say that conservatives in general don’t like Jefferson, it was much more specific: “Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board” (emphasis mine).
You’re right. I corrected that before your comment was posted (or before I saw it was posted, at least). I’ll admit that error and let you respond to the current posted version.
From the NY Times article:
Is the author speculating or does he have substantive evidence showing that board conservatives dislike Jefferson for the cited reason?
The phrase “separation of church and state” was used by Jefferson in a private letter he sent to a church member. Jefferson did not indicate that he held a view of the phrase that is consistent with the way 20th century liberals construe its meaning. Indeed as President Jefferson made some “church state” policy decisions that would have raised the hackles of the ACLU had that organization existed at the time.
The phrase was a useful wedge item constitutional activists could use to “protect” us from religion. The contemporary view of the freedom of religion clause has evolved to suit changing political norms.
Hey guys,
It’s unrealistic to expect that a short article will have all the details that would satisfy your high evidential standards. The article covers a lot of ground:
It spends a single paragraph describing the exclusion of Jefferson from the world history curriculum and his replacement with Aquinas, Calvin, and Blackstone. A parenthetic remark within that paragraph alludes to the attitude of the conservatives on the board to Jefferson. It is not typical for a parenthetic remark to be dwelled upon. A fair reading might suggest that the author can back up his claims but space limitations don’t allow the inclusion of specifics. Reasonable people may disagree about that, of course.
But it strikes me as a bit odd that Tom has decided to attack the messenger and not address the question I posed earlier: how is it possible to conclude that Aquinas, Calvin, and Blackstone had more influence on the political revolutions from 1750 to present than did Jefferson? Here are some thoughts from a graduate student in history at UCLA: Why is Texas Afraid of Thomas Jefferson?
olegt, you wrote,
It strikes me as odd that you haven’t acknowledged the NY Times’s shoddy and biased reporting on this.
I’m working up some ideas about your question on the Telic Thoughts thread where you’ve also asked the same thing, and I’ll meet you there.