FOXNews.com - Why the Texas Textbook Debate Matters

FOXNews.com - Why the Texas Textbook Debate Matters

Is America a “constitutional republic” or a “democratic” one? Is Country & Western more of a significant cultural movement than Hip Hop? Is there such a thing as “separation of church and state”?

These are but a few of the hundreds of questions the 15 elected members of the Texas State Board of Education [SBOE] have been agonizing over for nearly a year as they struggled to reach an agreement and adopt the Lone Star
State’s standards for social studies.

The vote is in, and the social studies standards were finally adopted last week following a marathon debate that was often contentious and racially charged.

The deliberation process became somewhat of a national spectacle in political discord, as the board’s ten Republicans –seven of whom are said to be part of a conservative Christian voting bloc—duked it out with the board’s five Democrats.

“We are adding balance,” to a perceived liberal bias, says Dr. Don McLeroy, a practicing dentist and Republican from Bryan, Texas.