Article 11: God’s Country: Religion and the Evolution of the Social Studies Curriculum in Texas

After a meeting in March 2010 to revise the social studies curriculum for the Texas public school board, Democratic Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) member Mary Helen Berlanga stormed out and was reported to say “They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians. They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world” (Shorto 2010). Berlanga’s outrage was sparked by efforts of Republican members of the committee such as Don McElroy and Cynthia Dunbar to revise the current social studies curriculum to reflect what most interpret to be a more conservative understanding of history (McKinley 2010; Scharrer 2010; Stutz 2010). The SBOE consists of ten Republicans, seven of whom tend to vote as a coalition for conservative proposals, and five Democrats. The more controversial proposals recommended by the coalition of conservative Republicans include diminishing the attention given to minorities in American history, giving greater attention to the rise of politically conservative influences in the 1970s and 1980s, and emphasizing the role of Christianity in American history. The religious proposals have incited some of the most vehement opposition from the public and the press (Czitrom 2010; Ravitch 2010; Willingham 2010).