Texans ought to take a look at Fordham's recent assessment of their state's history standards, which, according to the ?State of State U.S. History Standards 2011,? ?inculcate biblical principles, patriotic values, and American Exceptionalism,? making for a document that teaches an unfortunately politicized version of the national story. The Houston Chronicle reports that the chair of Texas's state board of education said that Fordham's evaluation ?is based on misinformation.? ?Fordham,? she said, ?obviously does not know that the Texas Education Code requires us to teach the free enterprise system and its benefits. That's the primary reason the free enterprise system is emphasized throughout our document, rather than just relegated to a high school economics class.? Well, perhaps the Texas Education Code could?stand some tweaking? Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott defended the standards not by actually defending their content but by impugning Fordham's motives: ?Given its funding sources,? he said of Fordham, ?it is not surprising that it would attack a state that has opposed national standards.? This would be more convincing were Texas's history standards themselves not so bad; never, for instance, does the Chronicle quote Scott addressing the report's criticism that the standards document ?distorts or suppresses less triumphal or more nuanced aspects of our past that the Board found politically unacceptable (slavery and segregation are all but ignored, while religious influences are grossly exaggerated).? Come on, Texans! You're better than that!
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow