Don't politicize our schools

The Texas State Board of Education got the equivalent of a black eye Friday when a far right group succeeded in injecting conservative ideas into social studies, history, in economics' lessons that will be taught to our children for the next decade.  Our children have enough difficulty comprehending the basic lessons that they are required to know.  The board voted 10-5 in favor; in a strict party line vote.  All this did not come about without protest because tempers did flare and several members threaten to walk away.  I can't remember controversy of this nature in my lifetime.  Three democrats eventually left making it easy for the republicans to push their agenda.

Teachers in Texas are not going have to teach Judeo Christian influences of our nation's founding fathers but without teaching them the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state.  Students will be required to study the decline of the American dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard. Economics' is tough enough, without injecting partisan theories.  I can't believe that a historic fact like Tejanos  dying at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie will not be inserted in the text books.  It's not surprising that students will be required to learn about the second amendment, that's a conservative holy grail.

During the days of slavery, slaves were not permitted to read, so have we evolve from that period if we are going to brain wash our children to adhere to conservative ideals,only? According to the World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Index, the United States is now only the fourth most competitive country in the world, having been surpassed by Sweden and Singapore and still trailing Switzerland, and we know we trail our main competitors in the areas of science and math. This is not the time for partisan gamesmanship; science and math are not political footballs. It's bad enough that 40% of our population believes in creationism.  Where do we start if we don't believe in the theory of evolution?

I will pretend to be an expert on the education of our children but I do know you should not be about political ideology.