Texas messes with textbooks

So the Texas BOE has adopted a new series of social studies standards that give a really "Glenn Beck" version of history and society. Here's a few awesome quotes from an AP article:

"As part of the new curriculum, the elected board — made up of lawyers, a dentist and a weekly newspaper publisher among others — rejected an attempt to ensure that children learn why the U.S. was founded on the principle of religious freedom.

But, it agreed to strengthen nods to Christianity by adding references to "laws of nature and nature's God" to a section in U.S. history that requires students to explain major political ideas.

They also agreed to strike the word "democratic" in references to the form of U.S. government, opting instead to call it a "constitutional republic."

In addition to learning the Bill of Rights, the board specified a reference to the Second Amendment right to bear arms in a section about citizenship in a U.S. government class and agreed to require economics students to "analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard."


However the really scary part is this: "Decisions by the board — long led by the social conservatives who have advocated ideas such as teaching more about the weaknesses of evolutionary theory — affects textbook content nationwide because Texas is one of publishers' biggest clients."