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LibertyIn08
04-21-2010, 08:37 AM
One thing that caught our eye in the big curriculum fight in Texas is the consternation among the Democrats on the Texas Board of Education that, as the Associated Press put it, “students will be required to study the decline in value of the U.S. dollar, including the abandonment of the gold standard.” It is but one of many requirements put into the social studies curriculum by the board. Democrats on the board and liberals more generally are upset because the clout that the state has among publishers of textbooks means that the decision in Texas will affect curricula in other states as well. But why in the world shouldn’t our nation’s curriculum cover the decline in the value of the United States dollar and the abandonment of the gold standard?

The historical fact is that one version or another of a gold standard existed during great stretches of our country’s history. Within the lifetimes of many members of the Texas Board of Education, America was on a gold exchange standard, the one set up at Bretton Woods after World War II. It lasted until 1971, when a Republican president closed the gold window and ushered in a period of fiat currency that has seen the value of the dollar plunge from a 35th of an ounce of gold to less than 1,000th of an ounce of gold. The failure of the Obama administration and the Congress to step up to this catastrophe has China, one of our biggest creditors, Europe, and even the United Nations caterwauling about the need for a new reserve currency.

If this is not the stuff of a compelling curriculum, what is? Wouldn’t our children be better educated if they were taught about the monetary powers and disabilities of the government established by the Founding Fathers? How many of them know what the Founders thought was meant by the word “dollars,” which was used twice in the Constitution?The record happens to be clear that our Founders thought that a dollar was 416 grains of standard silver, the same that was in a coin in widespread use called the Spanish milled dollar. How much of our financial troubles today derive from the fact that we have long since lost any legal connection between a dollar and something real? Wouldn’t it be a good thing for our students to study that question?

Read more. (http://www.nysun.com/editorials/thanks-texas/86909/)

Brian Defferding
04-21-2010, 08:40 AM
It's nice to see some actual truth being taught.

silentshout
04-21-2010, 10:06 AM
Well, in addition to those changes, they also eliminated much of Thomas Jefferson's writings and the whole bit about not having a state-sponsored religon. scary.

amy31416
04-21-2010, 10:10 AM
Well, in addition to those changes, they also eliminated much of Thomas Jefferson's writings and the whole bit about not having a state-sponsored religon. scary.

And that, my friend, is the downside. They don't want to make much mention of Jefferson because he was sometimes outright hostile towards organized religion, and for good reason.

When I look at the changes they made to the textbooks, the gains in educating kids about the financial system are almost entirely offset by the losses of TJ's philosophy.

LibertyIn08
04-21-2010, 10:21 AM
And that, my friend, is the downside. They don't want to make much mention of Jefferson because he was sometimes outright hostile towards organized religion, and for good reason.

When I look at the changes they made to the textbooks, the gains in educating kids about the financial system are almost entirely offset by the losses of TJ's philosophy.

Posted more due to the surprising mention of honest money by the Neoconservative Sun than as an endorsement of Texas' textbook changes.

amy31416
04-21-2010, 10:24 AM
Posted more due to the surprising mention of honest money by the Neoconservative Sun than as an endorsement of Texas' textbook changes.

I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised by that as well, borderline shocked even.