All my textbooks come from Texas...

A friend sent us an interesting link to a New York Times piece titled "How Christian Were the Founders?" Obviously, it deals with religion, specifically, with the efforts by christian conservatives to influence the Texas school curriculum. However, we'd be willing to bet that many people don't understand the way textbook curriculum is arrived at and the unbelievable influence Texas has on the rest of the country.

As the article explains, California may be the largest textbook market, but being California, its got pretty specific requirements that the rest of the nation does not want. Texas is basically the biggest customer left and they have pretty broad standards, which means all the textbook publishers want to make a book Texas will purchase and in turn it will be accepted by 46 or 47 other states.

In short, odds are the curriculum in your kids textbook is being decided by the Texas school board. Now, if that doesn't scare the shit out of you, it should. Texas is crazy. My god...have you seen the side of their toast? Not to mention that right now, they're probably killing someone. No, really. It's led some to wonder, "Can We Please Mess with Texas?"

We think it is impossible to teach an accurate history of our country without teaching about the religious history of our country. But that means all the warts associated with that history. Here at the BTPC, we support teaching the following two text books to all children in middle school:

And yes...in case you were wondering, the book to the right will knock your socks off.

Even our buddy Will thinks so. And he's wicked smart.

Hattip, Russ.