Education board looks at curriculum standards today

By GARY SCHARRER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

Sept. 16, 2009, 10:25PM

AUSTIN — State Board of Education members surely will have lots of questions today when experts responsible for the first draft of new history curriculum standards appear before them.

Why replace Christmas with a Buddhist holiday for study in sixth grade social studies? Why downgrade Cesar Chávez from a “citizenship” role model to a “reformer?” Why focus specifically on politically conservative heroes, but not liberal ones?

Today’s meeting is an early step toward modernizing social studies curriculum standards last updated in 1998. The 15-member State Board of Education is not expected to take a final vote until next spring.

The new Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards will determine classroom instruction, textbooks, and tests for the next 10 years.

The proposed standards suggest that sixth grade students be expected to explain the significance of religious observances of major faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.

The standards suggest teaching about Diwali, which is celebrated by some Buddhist sects but to drop mentions of Christmas. Easter would remain as an example of a Christian observance.

Keeping Christmas

Board members will get the last word on Christmas — which almost certainly will stay in the textbooks.

“We get more phone calls about that than anything that we’ve ever gotten phone calls about from people who have never called before,” said board member Don McLeroy.

“I would be very much surprised if it’s not a 15-0 vote to keep Christmas and Rosh Hashanah,” board member Ken Mercer said.

Experts have proposed keeping Yom Kippur as a Jewish observance, but removing Rosh Hashanah.

Board member Mary Helen Berlanga said she wants students exposed to more achievements of women than currently proposed.

She also objects to the proposed removal of former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros from the history books and the diminished status of farm workers’ leader and civil rights icon Cesar Chávez.

“Some of these issues will surface, and I think it’s going to be a very good discussion,” she said.

Board-appointed “expert” and writing committees are developing the new social studies curriculum standards.

They include six “expert reviewers” and 124 review committee members made up primarily of teachers.

Church-state separation?

The credentials of at least two of the “expert reviewers” — David Barton, of Wallbuilders, and Peter Marshall, of Peter Marshall Ministries — have drawn criticism.

Texas Citizens for Science President Steven Schafersman plans to object to the inclusion of Barton and Marshall in the review.

“They are not qualified to be social science experts. A lot of their views are against church-state separation. They are against the establishment clause (of the First Amendment) and they are trying to push Christianity in the standards that they are recommending,” Schafersman said.

gscharrer@express-news.net