Lunacy still reigns at the Texas Board of Education

The Texas Board of Education keeps its monopoly on idiocy. After repeatedly trying to introduce creationism in textbooks and attacking social sciences, the Texas Board today passed a resolution against the "pro-Islamic" and "anti-Christian" bias in textbooks. The vote passed 7-5, but it has no meaning as it is non-binding. Yes, it is easy to laugh at this (at this rate, the Texas Board of Education may render The Onion out of business) - but we should not underestimate the influence of such measures both in and outside the US.

The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution Friday that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry.

The board approved the one-page nonbinding resolution, which urges textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books, by a 7-5 vote.

Critics say it's another example of the ideological board trying to politicize public education in the Lone Star State. Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which advocates for religious freedom, questioned why the resolution came at a time when "anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country has reached fever pitch."

"It's hard not to conclude that the misleading claims in this resolution are either based on ignorance of what's in the textbooks or, on the other hand, are an example of fear-mongering and playing politics," Miller said.

Future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts will not be bound by the resolution.

Sigh!

Read the full story here.

P.S. Just a note to the writers of the resolution: They keep on mixing Middle-Easterners with Muslims. Actually a majority of Muslims do not live in the Middle East. For example, the largest Muslim country by population is Indonesia. Oh - but then this is something that they could have learnt in textbooks.