Friends of my brother home school their children and said it is close to impossible to get curricula that doesn't have an extreme, usually fundamentalist Christian, ideological bent.
They are the 'degree collector' type, and are some of the few parents who truly are qualified to teach their children.
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I dunno, home schooling seems like dumping water from bucket to bucket, something is always left behind and eventually you are left with empty buckets.

The history of Texas school censorship:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_and_Norma_Gabler
Note the organization started above is still going strong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_Research_Analysts

And an expanded look at the gleeful morons behind the current debacle.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1001.blake.html

Note: These morons are mild compared to the outrageous stack of falsehoods found in current christian academy and christian home school textbooks.

We must assume from the silence that local conservatives approve.

Mookie: post a link to your excerpts.

This essay matches the stories I hear from family members in the publishing industry and school administration.

http://www.edutopia.org/muddle-machine

It is true, because of improved technology, that the textbook publishers are doing much more 'customizing' of their materials, thankfully. I reject any assertion that Tx. has NOT had an affect since the 80's until fairly recently.
Unfortunately because of budget cuts, many school districts are stuck with older textbooks, so it will take a while for Tx.'s influence to wane.
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Still, reading about those board meetings exposes some seriously mind-blowing thinking on the part of the majority of the officials on the Tx. Board of Education.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

Texas does buy a lot of books, but thankfully, that buying power doesn't influence books for the rest of the country the way it might have in the past. Per a lively discussion on metafilter.com about the subject, I gleaned a couple nuggets of info from people who actually work in the school textbook publishing industry.

1) "I guarantee you that's not the case. I work for a large textbook publisher and we will create Texas-specific books, but we don't ever use the Texas standards as a larger template for a national edition. That's some kind of fear-mongering myth. Compare the actual textbooks."

2) "Don't know what that really implies, but I've yet to see a national edition of a textbook named that uses TX standards. There are several levels of customization that we do. The A-level customization is for California, Texas, and Florida. These three states are called "state-adoption" states and places like NY, IL, & PA are considered "open territory" because textbooks can be sold at the school-level rather than the state level. It's a lot easier to get a chunk of money from a state adoption than it is from 700 school visits, so that's why CA & TX are prioritized over NY. For CA, TX, & FL, we (usually) customize everything, really build the program around their standards (bc you can't get adopted anyway unless your product is 100% compliant with the standards). For B-level states like NC, OR, CO, etc. we might insert some standards correlation materials into the teacher edition and also provide a website that shows the correlation of specific lessons to individual standards breakouts.

Seems like it's a lot easier for a journalist—even one at FOX News—just to trot out this old OMG line than to do the actual research."

They DO have some really good MAGNET schools in Tx., but that is fairly easy to do when you can pick-and-choose your students. When you are allowed to exclude certain sociological classes from the student body, it is easier to focus the curricula.
This is one of the areas where I have serious intellectual struggles with myself. I see the value in providing younger (than college-age)students with a chance to follow a path of interest or proficiency with like-minded students. At the same time, isolating people intellectually, as we see Nationally on the grand scale, creates an atmosphere of distrust and fear, or scorn and rejection. It seems to me the best educational model is a hybrid of multiple systems, creating multiple tracks within the same facility. Maybe a few hours at the beginning of the day with a fully integrated student body transitioning into intensively focused tracks toward the afternoon.
I see no reason to make it difficult for the IB or AP student to take a woodworking class, nor should the kid who really wants to be a mechanic not have access to an AP trig class.
We don't need to be building separate facilities (we DO need to be upgrading the ones we HAVE), nor do we need to give our brightest, most motivated, easiest to educate students to some private company who charges more per student than we are ALREADY paying, but there is certainly something wrong with the rather clunky, one-size-fits-none educational system that is the standard in America today.
Problem is, every time you move the desks around, the fundies scream.

KBear..

contrary to all evidence... it is possible to get a good education in Texas..

not likely in the public school system after George got through with it... unless you lived in an affluent neighborhood with outstanding performance that was rewarded.. but...

still possible

"...some of your neighbors were educated in Texas."

Well, "went to school in Texas", perhaps.

yes.. i know
good reason for national standards...
without them we get the dumbing down of America due to available resources:(

This ruling will affect more than just Texas. Many textbooks are written to the Texas Curriculum due to the fact that Texas buys the most books due to thier large population.

Good point JoB! If we know enough to know we that there is more to learn, then someone succeeded along the way.
We should NEVER be satisfied with our depth and breadth of knowledge.

dawsonct..
i have:)

thansen..
i am a product of the Pendleton school system in the mid 50s to early 60s and the Portland school system in the mid 60s... both highly accredited school systems at that time... both with highly developed advanced class programs...

and i feel they failed me miserably:)

I think one of the hallmarks of a decent educational system is the number of students they graduate who know they were failed miserably.

it's those that got a high GPA and a good "edercatun" that worry me.

Yeah JoB, I have thought about that. I am a product of the Seattle School system in the 60s and 70s and I feel they failed me miserably.

...But apparently learned enough to know they didn't have to stay!
Congratulations to those who've broken free from their State of ignorance!

Be careful who you hug, some of your neighbors were educated in Texas. :o
_(insert joke about is that a six shooter in yer pocket or are you just happy to something something here)_

Read Zinn!

Have you ever wondered how many things you think you know.. things you were taught in school.. are wrong?

wouldn't that be something... a hug break at the middle of the crosswalk during all walk in the junction...

i can see it now:)

That Texas ruling makes me more thankful than ever that I live where I live. Seattle is an open-minded, loving city...go hug your neighbor!

dhg..

i love it when someone stirs my curiosity...
your statement that FDR prolonged the recession by interfering with free markets and creating WPA projects bothered me.. so i did a little research.

this is an interesting article..

http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/fdroosevelt/essays/biography/4

and reminded me that FDR did a whole lot more than the WPA...

his original response to the recession was to curb the budget and open up the free markets.. giving them the responsibility to regulate themselves.

This failed miserably!

He reinstituted regulations and ramped up the WPA only after the failure of the free market experience...

and this quote form that article would indicate that the failure of the WPA was in not doing enough...

"In hindsight, many economists and historians claim that FDR's strategy of "deficit-spending" and "pump-priming" was sound, but that $5 billion was too small to jump-start the nation's economy"

Regardless of the conclusions you draw about FDR's political and economic decisions ...

the pacific northwest would not be the same without the work completed by the WPA...

look around you.. that program created many of America's landmark treasures...

Among the other revisions in history: FDR did not pull us out of the recession, he PROLONGED the recession by interfering with free markets and creating WPA projects.
These guys are whacko and I would seriously like to see Texas form its own union.

Yep, if you aren't capable of appealing to reason, use fear and division.

there are days when i fear for our nation...

God forbid kids should be taught anything that might shake their faith...
only goes to show how much faith conservatives really have in their own concepts... they obviously don't believe they will hold up to intellectual scrutiny:(

C'mon Rich Perry, secede already!
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Strict constitutionalist; WTF does that mean anyway?

Yeah, my home state is passing some seriously daft education legislation as well. And they wonder why the state's largest export is educated young people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-carr/the-danger-of-dithering-a_b_495269.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?scp=1&sq=Texas%20Approves%20Curriculum%20Revised%20by%20Conservatives&st=cse

Texas Approves Curriculum Revised by Conservatives

(excerpts)

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
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Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”

It was defeated on a party-line vote.

I grew up in a state that used Texas guidelines. Even in the 60's and 70's many of the teachers skipped over sections they knew were wrong or outright lies.

This goes far beyond the "whitewashing" of slavery, the KKK terror campaign and the civil war common in the south.