Surprise: WaPo, NY Times Wildly Misstate "Controversial" Texas Board of Education Curriculum Changes

Liberals' ideological stranglehold on public school education is being challenged, so it's no wonder Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post and Michael Brick of the New York Times resort to outright lies about what Texas' recent curriculum changes require.

Ann Althouse slaughters Birnbaum by comparing his fantastic claims with the actual text of the Texas Board of Education's new standards.

Here's just one example out of many she discusses: Birnbaum writes that the new standards "draw an equivalency between Jefferson Davis's and Abraham Lincoln's inaugural addresses." The actual text, as quoted by Althouse:

Students are required to "analyze the ideas contained in Jefferson Davis' inaugural address and Abraham Lincoln's ideas about liberty, equality, union, and government as contained in his first and second inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg Address." The word "equivalency" is uncalled for. The requirement is to analyze, not to be indoctrinated that the ideas are the same.

Meanwhile, Tom Maguire gives Brick the back of his hand for making similar errors. Once again, simply going to the actual text of the new curriculum standards demonstrates that Brick is living in a fantasy world.

Click over and read 'em both.

Later: Oh, and California is moving fast to prevent public school students out here from learning about things like the Venona Papers, capitalism, Phyllis Schlafly (!!), and the conservative resurgence of the 1980s.

The California Senate is expected to pass a bill this week that would require the California Board of Education to reject any textbooks that have been influenced by the Texas Board of Education standards.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 11:43 AM

| Access Comments