Texas, where science and history have become ideological battlegrounds | Ars Technica

Some of the most important decisions that influence the public's knowledge aren't made by scientific societies and they don't take place in Washington DC. For the most part, they're made in the capitals of each state, as each has its own standards for what students leaving its public schools should know. Those standards set lesson plans and help decide which textbooks are acceptable.

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The process for creating Texas' educational standards is mostly a sound one. A panel of educators and subject experts, often drawn from the academic community, decided which subjects are most relevant and what students should know about them. The standards are then handed over to the board for approval. But the soundness ends there. The board, which may not (and in many cases, does not) have expertise in these subject areas, is allowed to delete, edit, or replace any of the standards recommended by the experts.

[The last sentence is what galls me, that and McElroy's satement, "Someone has to stand up to the experts."]

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The movie follows the testimony and actions of the board as it tears through—and in some cases, tears up—the science and history standards that were forwarded to them. It uses footage of hearings and votes, along with interviews of many of the participants, including a professor involved in writing the science standards, and Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network, an organization dedicated to limiting the impact of the board's more ideological members.

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If anything, the history standards were worse. Dunbar claims she's a "big fan" of Thomas Jefferson, but thinks a "secular humanistic ideology" has clouded current interpretations of his work. So she cuts him out of the standards on the Enlightenment and its influence on the US' founding documents, instead substituting in pre-enlightenment figures like Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. Further revisions to history come rapid fire, as others try to add the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, and NRA to a section on the '80s, and another person tries to make sure Barack Obama's middle name (Hussein) is added to the text where his name appears.

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Enough people describe the whole process as a mess that it's no surprise The Revisionaries struggles to lay it out in a narrative. The challenge is made larger by the filmmakers' decision to provide little framing for the footage, other than sporadic notes scratched on a blackboard to give some sense of the timing and location of the clips. As a result, the movie really doesn't work if you go into it hoping to get a history of the Texas school board. In fact, it would probably be better if you went in to things with a rough outline of the events (the one in this review would be enough).

Texas, where science and history have become ideological battlegrounds | Ars Technica