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Thread: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

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    Default The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    If the fight to stop gay marriage has come down to nixing “asexual stealth phrases” from health textbooks, then this country is seriously screwed. These SBOE people have entirely too much time on their hands.

    http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6415905/
    http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...olitan/2885287
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    God/dess montythegeek's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by doc-catfish
    If the fight to stop gay marriage has come down to nixing “asexual stealth phrases” from health textbooks, then this country is seriously screwed. These SBOE people have entirely too much time on their hands.

    http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6415905/
    http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...olitan/2885287
    While I completely agree this is just plain stupid, remember that people also wasted an equivalent amount of time and money making sure it was phrased this way for the opposite polical motives. There are nutcases all over.

    The sad thing is that neither side ever heard of just making little stickers to put over text so the bozos will want to buy all new books so Johnny won't be able to peek under the labels. I think we should balance the budget with a "just plain stupid idea" tax!

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Don't blame publishers, blame school councils.

    Another reason why public education in this country is in the toilet--social engineering.

    Why people can rationalize not homeschooling or ponying up for private schools is beyond me.
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by Casual Observer
    Why people can rationalize not homeschooling or ponying up for private schools is beyond me.
    Hmm, lets see...

    Well, few people are qualified or have the time to homeschool because they WORK for a living. As for "ponying up" for private school? If you're a family of four making a combined income of, say, $35,000 a year (even $10K more) you're barely middle-class nowadays. And that's IF there are two parents around...

    Besides, the wealthy typically pay enough property taxes in their neighborhoods so that their public schools are often better than some private schools.

    It can't be rationalized because those types of rationalizations don't fit into many people's daily lives.
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by doc-catfish
    If the fight to stop gay marriage has come down to nixing “asexual stealth phrases” from health textbooks, then this country is seriously screwed. These SBOE people have entirely too much time on their hands.

    Its all part of the brainwashing going on in this country by the rightwing. You can see simlar tactics used in other classrooms around the world for various "agendas" such as an anti Jewish , anti American etc.

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    Banned Katrine's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    http://www.tfn.org/issues/boardofed/

    A good friend of mine campaign for a Democrat women running for the Texas SBOE in 2000. I can't recall or find her name, but she lost. The SBOE is run by the Christian right, and has been for years. They've been trying to pass anti-evolution mandates for as long as I can remember. They are a fucked up and corrupt bureaucracy here. I am not suprised of this news.

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    What a great link, Katrine, I am finding a lot of interesting information and many other related links there.
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Public school textbooks are, and have been for a long time, mostly propaganda for what school boards want kids to know. They realize that what is taught and emphasized to kids stays with them a long time, maybe as long as what their parents taught/showed them.

    So if some crazy-ass social engineering editorial board decides to push something as nuts as saying heterosexual and homosexual 'marriages' are equivalent and equally accepted, or should be, or kids should learn set theory, elementary geodesics, and combinatorics before they learn arithmetic, and they are able to sell those edicational concepts to a crazy-ass state education board, then guess what ... that is what your kids get to learn.

    Guess how those state school boards are appointed....and how the local boards are often elected. Well, it isn't exactly objective.

    And, as for Texas, who do you think would be more responsible in appointing sociably-responsible people for the state board? George Bush or Ann Richards?
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    I work in the textbook industry, and in fact used to sell Health textbooks in Texas. They adopt new textbooks for classes on a 7 year cycle (this is common across the US), I can't believe it's been 7 years since I went through it there...

    but I digress...

    Texas is the largest textbook market in the US and drives the bus, and as such, the industry publishes to what Texas wants and the rest of the country pretty much gets what Texas wants because of that.

    The way they do it is, a state board made up of teachers reviews new books for each class and approves a list that each district can choose from. It is all important to make that list if you're a publisher. The review board meets several times and at one point, publishers make presentations to the board and then allow public commentary. This is where it gets good...you should see the kooks that show up for the public hearing. Right wing Christian nutjobs are the most prominent, but a few militant feminist lesbian bulldykes occasionally show up, and race baiters from both sides make appearances every so often. There is one couple that travels from state to state, they're well known in the business, and rants and rails against things they don't like in books. The last TX Health adoption got so bad, one of the publishers, a giant in the business, pulled its book from consideration...which is a HUGE decision and probably cost them tens of millions of dollars in sales.

    Just a little inside info...

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    ^ Interesting -- thanks for the birds eye veiw point

    There is one couple that travels from state to state, they're well known in the business, and rants and rails against things they don't like in books
    LMAO - what are some of things they travel around complaining about ?

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Tigerlilly, during the last Texas and Florida Health adoptions (this was like 1996 or so), they went nuts because most of the books discussed homosexuality, birth control and contraception, the sexual organs, that sort of thing. They're fundies of the worst sort. They showed up at the Florida meeting that discussed American Government textbooks and went off on how one book had a section that discussed prayer in school and how they thought it had an agenda against prayer. They're a source of amusement, for the most part. I used to wonder who financed their trips.

    Anyway, I sell college textbooks now, so I no longer see those two kooks.

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    I dunno,same sex marriage was shoved down the publics throats without even so much as a vote.
    If gay marriage is right or wrong isnt the issue,its what the people want or dont want as a whole,concerning any issue.
    If the country decided,and laws are passed against it,why wouldnt we put that in the books we teach our children from???
    If same sex marriage isnt legal in texas,why would they leave doubts in the schoolbooks.

    If gay marriage is legal in a state and they took it out of the books,in that state,then i would see a problem with it.

    Basically,Texans dont agree with same sex marriage on the whole,so why should they be forced to teach their children from books that say its OK???

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    Jay Zeno
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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    It is advisable, but not required, to read the links before criticizing the meaning of them.

    In this case, there was nothing in the books about approving of homosexual marriage. There were phrases used such as "individuals who marry," and a member of the Texas Board said that was a "stealth phrase" and as such was approving of homosexual marriage. Maybe implicitly, but it's not teaching the kids that such marriage is cool.

    Evidently, some book also made reference to same-sex couples as though they exist. Well, guess what - they do.

    Galileo was put under house arrest for spreading facts. Copernicus was reviled by Catholic and Protestant churches for taking the earth out of the center of the universe. But amazingly enough, the facts prevailed. Yes, some people were taught the wrong things for a while. But facts prevailed.

    So it goes with school boards who want to deny basics of scientific knowledge, such as evolution and paleontology. Some kids won't have the opportunity to learn some sets of facts. But the facts will prevail, society will move on, and these school boards will find their places in history as laughable pieces of trivia rather than the protectors of society that they fancy themselves.

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Green MnM, I'll reference the book we published since it was one of the ones targeted at the time (FYI, it was approved by the state committee and sold fairly well).

    Our book had about three paragraphs that discussed homosexuality in broad terms, and then talked about tolerance of gays. Not acceptance, just tolerating them. If you want to call that an agenda, so be it. I thought it was more like educating people who may not have heard anything other than "Gays are evil" that even if you still want to believe that, you should still not hate them. For this, and for info on contraceptive devices (our book still pushed abstinence as the primary method of birth control) plus diagrams of sexual organs, our book was one of the ones that got blasted by the fundies.

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Texas has always been part of the US, but in it's own world.

    Texas cities have more teen sex going on than one can shake a stick at and the kids will be laughing at the teacher trying to brainwash them into believing all those sexual myths.

    How can we make these Christian Conservatives go away?

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    Default Re: The Texas Health Textbook Controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by Tina
    How can we make these Christian Conservatives go away?
    Find the closet skeletons of nutcases, and shamefully expose them. (seriously)

    Then tie them up at the stake and burn their personal libraries. (j/k)

    Generally people who are so hateful of things have their own set of sins to worry about and project upon.
    Last edited by threlayer; 11-27-2004 at 11:14 PM. Reason: 1 typo
    I loved going to strip clubs; I actually made some friends there. Now things are different for the clubs and for me. As a result I am not as happy.

    Customers are not entitled to grope, disrespect, or rob strippers. This is their job, not their hobby, and they all need income. Clubs are not just some erotic show for guys to view while drinking.

    NOTE: anything I post here, outside of a direct quote, is my opinion only, which I am entitled to. Take it for what you estimate it is worth.

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