AUSTIN--After nearly two and a half centuries since the American Revolution--roughly a sixth the age of the earth--U.S. history may finally be recorded accurately if the Texas State Board of Education is permitted to proceed with its proposed alterations to the state's textbooks. Dominating 80% of the nation's school-textbook purchasing power, changes made to the Lone Star state's public school curriculum would be felt by students from Kindergarten to 12th grade across the country for the next 10 years.
"Now we don't have to burn books anymore," said Don McLeroy, who leads the Board of Education's ultra-conservative majority. "By simply rewriting American history, we can finally nip that ol' chore in the bud."
For starters, the revised textbooks would once and for all clean up ideologically-loaded terminology that many feel leans too far to the left. America's modern rise to world power would no longer be referred to as "Imperialism," but rather "Expansionism"; abstract concepts like "Separation of Church and State" would be clarified with the more straightforward "Christian Nation"; and the touchy issue of racial language would finally be put to rest, with words like "Black," "Negro," and "African-American" replaced by the all-encompassing "Socialist."
"Those 'Socialists' were exactly the type of folks that Thomas Jefferson would go off and cohort with, which is precisely why we voted 10-to-5 to remove him from the list of our nation's model founders," said Cynthia Dunbar, a fellow ultra-conservative Board member, who in lieu of Jefferson proposed intellectuals like Puritan theologian John Calvin and medieval Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas. "If God had made an America back then, they'd have totally been Americans," Dunbar added, adjusting her hairshirt.
Other important revisions to history would include a more favorable portrayal of America's lovable anti-communist witch-hunt crusader, Joseph McCarthy; an emphasis on Country music as one of the nation's most culturally-significant movements (compared to lesser-known musical genres like the socialist Hip-Hop, which was excised from the textbooks); and clarifying the absence of American Hispanics in Texas during the Battle of the Alamo.
"Mexicans come from Mexico. I mean, hello. This is precisely why we need to fix America's education system," said Republican board member Terri Leo. "Our children need to be taught where they come from, to learn the richness of this great country--how our number one Founding Father, George Washington, was called to action by Jesus and died defending the Alamo--where his wooden teeth were put on display as a reminder to us all until they were stolen by the Jews, traveling west on their way to Hollywood."
While the draft of revisions to American history proposed by the Texas State Board of Education is only a meager 120 pages, many, like McLeroy, say it's a long-overdue step in the right direction.
"Now, what we'd ultimately like to see in our schools are picture-books, since reading is a such a sure-fire sign of being an elitist, but one step at a time. One step at a time."
