Today’s SBOE Social Studies Debate

The Texas State Board of Education is progressing slowly through early agenda items this morning. We anticipate that the board won’t get to the debate over proposed new social studies curriculum standards until after lunch. TFN Insider will resume live-blogging from the meeting once board members take up the social studies debate.

8 thoughts on “Today’s SBOE Social Studies Debate

  1. Gee. Terri Leo lets her hair out of its pins to let it all hang down when she gets tired. I wonder if she is pentecostal? In my area of the U.S., long hair is a standard part of the female pentecostal uniform. I know that sounds impertinent, but knowing that would give me some insights into how she processes issues through her religious filter. Anyone know? Is she pentecostal?

  2. During my senior year in high school, I was a counselor’s aide, along with another student, a girl. She had really long hair. I asked about it and she said she was Pentecostal and that they never cut their hair. At the time, I had little idea what being Pentecostal even meant.

    Anyway, I thought about it some more, and it occurred to me that her hair would be even longer–all the way to the floor, most likely–if she’d never cut it in 17 years. I pointed that out, and she said, “Well, we don’t cut it, but we do trim it.”

    I don’t think she recognized the irony in that statement.

  3. I bet she has TFN up on that laptop of hers. Right after I posted that, she started using her hands to nervously mess around with her hair.

    Hi Terri!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. The audio feed cut out when Lowe started talking about consistent terminology for form of government.
    I didn’t hear what was said about that. Right wingers like to insist that ours is a republic, not a democracy. Is that what this was about? What was said/decided about terminology for form of government?

    1. Lowe asked that references to the U.S. form of government be “democratic republic” throughout the standards. The board consented.

  5. It surprises me that no one mentions this.

    The founding fathers were generally well educated men of the 17th century.

    As such they would be familiar with European history. They would know about the expulsion of Jews from much of Europe (notably Spain), about the many instances of Protestant vs. Catholic warfare — the Huguenot, the 30 years war, obviously the history of the Church of England, Ireland, Scotland, the list goes on and on.

    They would know why there was a place named Rhode Island.

    Did the founding fathers really want to continue these conflicts here in the new world?

    I really think that they didn’t.

  6. Perhaps it might be wise to consider releasing school districts to buy what they want. State contracts can still be made for a wider range of options as they do for other line items subject to public purchase.

    There would be a number of school districts that, undoubtedly add Mein Kampf to the reading list as there are others that would add Das Kapital. Given a normal distribution of extremists, the normal range of two third s of the rest could buy fro a variety of acceptable sources.