The ideological debate over the guidelines, which drew intense scrutiny beyond Texas, will be used to determine what important political events and figures some 4.8 million students will learn about for the next decade.So it's actually not just Texas -- it's possible that these curriculum changes could affect textbooks in other states as well. In the digital age, however, this is less of a concern as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states. Texas can wallow in its own ignorance.
The standards, which one Democrat called a "travesty," also will be used by textbook publishers who often develop materials for other states based on guidelines approved in Texas, although teachers in the Lone Star state have latitude in deciding how to teach the material.
The board attempted to make more than 200 amendments this week alone, reshaping draft standards that had been prepared over the last year and a half by expert groups of teachers and professors.
As new amendments were being presented just moments before the vote, Democrats bristled that the changes had not been vetted.
"I think we're doing an injustice to the children of this state by piecemealing together, cutting and pasting, coming up with new amendments as late as today," said Mary Helen Berlanga, a Democrat. "What we have done today and what we did yesterday is something that a classroom teacher would not even have accepted."
As I mentioned before, among the many changes would be an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism. This, as the JACL has objected, is a load of crap.