Whose Been Indoctrinating the Children?

If you only read leftwing sites for coverage of the Texas Textbook controversy, you'd come away believing education was going to hell in a handbasket and that there was a sudden attempt to indoctrinate the kids in eeeevil ways. Take this from MSNBC:

Among the recommendations facing a final vote: adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and including positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the GOP’s Contract with America.

Other amendments to the state's curriculum standards for kindergarten through 12th grade would minimize Thomas Jefferson's role in world and U.S. history because he advocated the separation of church and state; require that students learn about "the unintended consequences" of affirmative action; assert that "the right to keep and bear arms" is an important element of a democratic society; and rename the slave trade to the "Atlantic triangular trade.”

Oh, noes. We certainly don't want or need children to have any positive references to the Second Amendment or conservatives. That might halt the slow march to hell liberals have been leading us on forever. From (laughably titled) Teaching Tolerance:

But even if Diskey is right, what’s happening in Texas has national implications. The board’s decisions affect 4.7 million Texas school kids—4.7 million potential future voters who will be acting on biased information.

(Emphasis mine)
Biased information? As opposed to the completely unbiased propaganda information available from groups like Teaching Tolerance? If Teaching Tolerance were actually about informing as opposed to indoctrinating, the argument against the Texas educators might be stronger. But because of groups like Teaching Tolerance, the New York Collective of Radical Educators (CORE) and Rethinking Schools, normal people actually do have to take the educational reins and rench them back to something closer to the center.

The truth is that Teaching Tolerance and other liberal organizations are afraid that students won't be lapping up social justice lessons or twisted views of American history bent to show the United States as racist, sexist, homophobic, greedy and generally a terrible force in the world. If I thought this way, I'd be scared that children might learn nice things about America, too.

Teaching Tolerance: Free Speech Is OK, But You Need to Embrace Empathy More!

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance website typically offers up all kinds of goodies for this Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels to comment on, but I was particularly interested in this post, which, if left in the comments of a rightwing blog would be known as concern trolling.
The post is about the five (not four) students at a Live Oak High School who were suspended for wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo (see here for my take). The author begrudgingly acknowledges the totally outrageous idea that students have the right to free speech, even when it offends some, but then launches into the real point of the post: we should curtail our speech if it offends someone, and by someone, she means those celebrating another country's Independence Day.

Public school students have rights, and at a minimum their administrators need to ensure that those rights are protected. But the primary mission of educators in public schools is to teach children how to use those rights, and how to be a member of a diverse society. Students need to learn that rights come with responsibilities. And in a pluralistic society, we need to understand and respect the people who live alongside us.

I haven't looked, but I'm sure the author endorses respecting the rights of, say, those protesting government spending or parents wanting the best education for their children. Well, probably not.

If students want to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I have no problem with that. But when American students want to wear T-shirts with American flags on them anyday--including Cinco de Mayo--that's not intolerant and it's not insensitive. That's freedom of expression, something those celebrating Cinco de Mayo should learn to embrace. And that's the teachable moment the author should have embraced.