Apr
16
Written by:
William Lutz
4/16/2010 12:06 PM
The front page of today's Austin American-Statesman has yet another story about a bunch of academics whining because the State Board of Education thinks our children should be taught patriotism. Click here to read.
Here's the deal, it is next to impossible to get tenure in subjects like history if one thinks America is the greatest country on earth. The only "research" that gets published in scholarly academic journals (a requirement for tenure) is research on how the U.S.A. is racist, sexist, classist, etc. I regularly talk with college students, and what goes on in academia today (with some exceptions) is largely indoctrination, not education. Students will spend four years learning about "institutional racism." What the members of the elected State Board of Education are trying to do is balance that out.
Every elected Republican has a patriotic duty to ensure that our children are taught the good things about America. Where do I get that from? The greatest president in American history, Ronald Reagan himself. Click here to view Reagan's farewell address where Reagan discusses the importance of teaching the next generation American values. Last session, the House Public Education Committee spent a bunch of time attacking the SBOE. That needs to stop now.
If our students don't learn the unique nature of America from our K-12 education system, they won't learn it in higher education. Exhibit A will be presented on Tuesday when the House Higher Education Committee discusses how to get more Western Civilization instruction included in higher education. I hope the committee will discuss the misbehavior of the faculty and administration at the University of Texas at Austin. The university had a program in Western Civilization and American Institutions. But the faculty senate and administration decided Western Civilization and American Institutions didn't deserve to be celebrated, so they changed the name of the Program to the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Ideas and changed the director. For the most part, higher education holds American values in contempt, and what appeared in today's Statesman was just another chapter in a very long book.
Rather than believe the confused rantings of the academic left, here's a better idea: Read the standards and let them speak for themselves. The Texas Education Agency has posted the standards for public review. A simple reading of the standards show they are a vast improvement and that the alarmist rhetoric coming from the left doesn't reflect reality.