Michael Moore: “America is We, the People”

Michael Moore answers question on “American exceptionalism”; gives his version of the Pledge of Allegiance. “American exceptionalism” has been a hot-button focus of contention in recent curriculum controversies, and features in several posts here on Curricublog. This past Sunday (October 2, 2011), Michael Moore was featured on the interview and call-in show IN DEPTH on C-Span’s BookTV. […]

David Barton on majorities and minority rights

Under Construction I don’t have time to write this post right now — hopefully I’ll get to it before too long. But I did want to post these paragraphs now while people are looking for this. These relate to a story on Al Sharpton’s show on MSNBC tonight (Aug 24, 2011) on Rick Perry and David […]

Documentation for IJSE article: “Howard Zinn and the Struggle for Real History in the United States”

The items on this page are posted as documentation for an article that will appear later this year in the International Journal of Social Education. The complete bibliographic citation for that article will be added here when it becomes available.

State of the Nation: IN PERIL! (Bachmann speech / videos)

On his MSNBC Hardball program last week, Chris Matthews was calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) a “balloon head” — somebody who speaks freely without knowing anything, about U.S. history, in particular, and somebody who need to go back to school to learn something about history, so that she might finally know something about the things she likes […]

Defending science, history, etc.: A promising precedent?

It seems to me that the case of David Rudovsky and Leonard Sosnov v. West Publishing Corporation (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 2010), provides an intruiging suggestion for defending genuine science and social studies materials for school curriculum. A December 21 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer reports the outcome of this case. In […]

Texas bill to politicize curricula

A new bill in the Texas legislature would politicize curricula by reversing legislative action which had previously vested authority over selection of supplementary materials to the Texas Education Agency, removing that authority from the Texas State Board of Education [SBOE].

Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure « Texas Freedom Network

Board Takes Up Anti-Muslim Measure « Texas Freedom Network. By Dan The Texas State Board of Education is about to take up a proposed resolution attacking Islam and claiming that social studies textbooks are anti-Christian. TFN Insider will keep you updated on progress. 9:53 a.m. – We notice that board members Barbara Cargill and Don […]

Tea Partiers & anti-democratic ignorance

The fact that GOP and Tea Party candidates can get away with this nonsense — at least to the extent of garnering enough support to force runoff elections, if not to secure GOP nominations — demonstrates the sad state of historical education in this country. Alabama GOP runoff candidate Rick Barber is running this ad […]

Oklahoma’s Judeo-Christian Law amendment measure

Jeff Musall has it about right in his (subtly-titled) opinion piece, “Oklahoma’s ‘Save Our State’ amendment to ban Sharia law is abominable.” Here is the news release from the Oklahoma legislature:

SBOE’s Dunbar @ “liberty”. “edu”, on CBN, etc.

I don’t believe I’ve ever had such an extensive post here devoted as much as this one is to the antics of Cynthia Dunbar. Hence, it’s tempting to use something like “Dumb and Dunbar” as the title of this post. (Is it really possible that nobody has used that title before?) I can’t do that […]

Dunbar Takes New Trip on Extremism Train (via Texas Freedom Network)

Here’s more on the recent antics on Cynthia Noland Dunbar, lame duck member of the Texas SBOE. This is one of a few items that I’m posting as background for a couple of my own new posts that will appear later today. Good grief. Cynthia Dunbar has demonstrated once again the kind of religious and political […]

Religious Freedom Fails in Texas (via Texas Freedom Network)

The Texas Freedom Network just sent out the following press release: The Texas State Board of Education’s vote today against requiring that students learn what the nation’s Founders did to protect religious freedom represents an irresponsible rewriting of American history and a stunning triumph of politics over education, the president of the Texas Freedom Network […]

Encore quote of the moment: George Washington on religious freedom (via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub)

This is my first time trying a new WordPress “re-blogging” feature; but it’s also a great post, with great relevance to things happening on this blog — in particular, a post that I’ll be posting soon on a GOP candidate for Delaware’s Congressional seat who’s said that “separation of Church and State” is an idea […]

Wickham: Texas history as opportunity

In USA Today (and by syndication in other Garnette papers), Dwayne Wickham has a May 25 column to show how the Texas State Board of Education’s (SBOE) newly-adopted standards for history education, despite intentions by the SBOE leading bloc of right-wing ideologues, actually can provide an opportunity for teaching real history. Wickham notes that Among […]

TX SBOE reminds SMU Dean of Apartheid regime’s historical revisionism

On The Ed Show Friday, May 21 on MSNBC, Dr. David Chard Dean of the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University in Fort Worth (see comment below) Dallas, Texas, offered this observation: It reminds me a little bit of what happened in South Africa when there was domination […]

Glenn Beck: “It is God’s finger that wrote Declaration, Constitution”

In his commencement speech at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University Saturday (May 15, 2010), Glenn Beck gave a preview of what history teaching might someday look like if the current majority (including some lame ducks) of the Texas State Board of Education gets its way. Beck proclaimed, for example, that It is God’s finger that wrote […]

Revised TX Social Studies standards

Historians from Texas and around the U.S. have signed a letter calling for the Texas State Board of Education to delay its final vote on revised Social Studies standards and to allow time for review and input from scholars, as reported by the Associated Press and by the Austin American-Statesman. The historians have set up […]