“As more schools try to revise US history, it has been found that Guyer High School in Denton, Texas is using an AP History book [United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination] that completely changes the 2nd amendment in an attempt to try to “’simplify’ what it says,” gunsnfreedom.com reports. As the gun blogger points out, simple here means dead wrong. “The people have a right to keep and bear arms in a state militia”? The U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller decision establishes that the actual Second Amendment—“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. TTAG called the Denton Independent School District about the kerfuffle. Their Director of Communications wanted to communicate an important fact . . .
“This is a supplemental text,” Sharon Cox asserted. To clarify, I asked her if Denton ISD AP teachers were telling students that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. “Yes sir,” she responded. “They are. The teachers are disseminating the correct information. This is just a summary.”
A couple of hours later, she sent me the following press release:
Thank you for your interest in our textbook.
The main history book that is utilized in the Advanced Placement U.S. History class for juniors in Denton ISD is titled: American Pageant. This is a history book that has had a strong reputation for historical facts for many years. The American Pageant, the official textbook, gives the exact Bill of Rights.
The book in question, U.S. History: Preparing for Advanced Placement Exams, is a supplement instructional aid and not the official textbook for any history classes. In this supplement, it states that the following is a “summary statement.” The teachers and staff are aware of this “summary statement” and are teaching the amendments from the classroom textbook, American Pageant. The only approved textbook for these classes is American Pageant. All other materials are “supplemental.”
Please be assured that Denton ISD history teachers are disseminating the correct information on the Second Amendment.
Ms. Cox couldn’t say if the offensive material would be removed from the Denton teachers; only that it’s been available to Guyer High School since 2005. She also said that the School District reviews its textbook choices every year. Ms. Cox declined to disclose whether or not United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination will face new scrutiny for the 2014 school year.
The book in question is on a list of texts available to public schools provided by the Texas Education Agency. We’ve got a call in there too.
hypocrites
You don’t get to “supplement” the Constitution with wrong information. They’re trying to use “supplemental” as an excuse. Nice try.
My thoughts exactly, no part of the constitution should be a simple abbreviated “supplement”.
Just an attempt to brainwash kids to think the way they want them to think.
This, and the ‘creationist’ nonsense, (not to mention HS football as a religion) is why thinking people laugh at Texans.
Especially when they claim to be ‘better’ about understanding anything -especially The Constitution.
Ms Cox is lying,if high schoolers I’ve met are any indication.
the dumbing down of America….
More surreptitious brainwashing; it’s too convenient for there NOT to have been liberal progressive interference at play with that text.
Exactly. And that is precisely how they do it. Just wear it away a tiny bit at a time when they think you are not looking.
*squinting* “What does it say?”
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
+1 for the Animal Farm reference. It was required reading when I was in school, still should be….though I can’t imagine the spin some teachers would put on it now.
Another reason for HomeSchooling…
While I was a product of the public school system of the 80’s and 90’s, my parents were the ones who taught me about the bill of rights and constitution. The schools only glossed over what is the most important government document in our nation. My parents also stated correctly what the 2A was all about.
Pinkos are always bitching and moaning about how Texas forces its book standards on the rest of the country, so perhaps they’re trying a different tack: infiltrate their pablum into Texas books :/
WTF. “This is just a summary”… a summary of what? An incorrect interpretation of the 2nd Amendment by the types of people who want it stricken from the books? It’s certainly not a summary of what it actually says or means, according to the Founders or SCOTUS!
…also noticed right away that the 3rd leaves out info about war time: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law”
Thank you for beating me to that! whutwhutwhut! It’s gotta be a private school, tell me it’s a private school.
Anyone who thinks that Communism fell when the Soviet Union collapsed hasn’t been in an American school for a long, long time. The teachers, the curricula, the textbooks, the whole rotten mess is pure anti-Americanism at its finest.
Cliff Notes on one of the liberal playbooks – “The Naked Communists”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist
Enlightening isn’t it?
Especially goal number 3 & 41
You failed to call everyone’s attention to these gems:
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
Thank you
Note to self & I will keep that in mind
REquired watching:
I give that to everyone I can. It shocked the h3ll out of a few.
I’ve lived in Denton, and it’s a pretty politically diverse community. But be of good courage! The kinds of kids taking AP history courses are not the ones dumb enough to think that the Second Amendment is limited to militia members possessing firearms.
Even if it doesn’t brainwash, confuse, or convince too many of these students, how do they answer on the AP placement exams, SAT’s, or other tests where their future may depend on their scores and the “right” answer according to the test is what’s seen in the pic above?
Yup, that’s my worry too. The supplement focuses on AP History, so what’s in that exam? That would be an excellent question to put to them, IMO.
I don’t know, University professors (on average) have IQs well above average, but the majority of them are raving moonbats.
Smart, yes; wise, no. I have NEVER met a PhD with all their marbles intact.
Some few survive the damage enough to recover. Most are damaged beyond repair by the experience. Some, because of the strong selection for jackholery were lost from the start.
Don’t bet on the TEA, they had to get the FBI to fix the corruption in the El Paso school scandal.
An oversimplification? A summary? A mistake even? No, let’s call that what it really is; a factually incorrect statement. It’s a self evidently incorrect statement by either the common understanding of the 2A or the supreme court’s interpretation of same. It’s as factually and importantly wrong as if it asserted that A. Lincoln was the first president and G. Washington presided during the civil war.
If they get to characterize that as ‘a summary’ then I may characterize it as a shameless attempt at indoctrinating students into a leftist worldview by means of propaganda.
Put the question to the publisher. Watch the fun.
Wow. This is an all-time low. What’s next – replacing the actual, original constitution with a ‘revised’ version?
That’s what I’m wondering too! If they got this wrong, what else is screwed up in the book? Apparently they went for the Reader’s digest condensed style of editing.
No, according to that “person in charge” in D.C., our Constitution is MEANINGLESS!
its cool, north korea does it all the time. nothing to worry about
Texas…WTF?
In Texas, of all states? Disgraceful!
I hope Texans get this issue taken care of.
Texas is going to be a battleground in the future. Note the whole massive media coverage over the abortion protests over the summer. They’re trying to make it look like Texas is in play, and maybe move some moderate progressives to take action.
I took the AP U.S. History test in high school. Why should kids taking an ADVANCED PLACEMENT class for COLLEGE CREDIT need to have the amendments simplified for them? They’re written in very plain, very grammatically correct English…..
So the instructors (I won’t dignify them by calling them “teachers”) won’t have to struggle with big words or complex ideas. Like “not be abridged”.
Granted it can be difficult for a small school committee to proof read every single
textbook, however, as Ms. Cox states all books are approved by the district.
By not yanking the text or publishing a district wide notice of errata, Ms. Cox
and the district members are complicit in its use.
Considering the rather obvious “simplification”, one how many other textbooks
have overt “mistakes” in them.
Poor scholarship at the very least. The mistake could be one of ignorance, viz. someone trying to shorten the text but not bothering to look up how the SCOTUS and lower courts have interpreted the 2A.
Never assume malfeasance where incompetence is sufficient to explain. Not that we shouldn’t be vigilant, since there is plenty of both incompetence and malfeasance (kudos for calling the district and State Education office).
Now, if you correct them and they refuse to change the text, then the assumption flips the other way to assuming malfeasance until proven otherwise.
Either way, we all need to take a close interest at what our kids learn in “social studies,” and have frequent talks with them. It’s just not practical for many people to home-school.
To be fair, all of those entries appear to be layman definitions. That being said however, those are some of the worst explanations of the enumerated rights I have ever read. WTF!
Well then, the “summary” is wrong. As a stand alone statement, it is only partially true; factual but incomplete.
That is the purpose of the Bill of RIGHTS – not to protect the RIGHTS of people, but to explain the best way for the state to run a military (with arms?). What?!
I fail to understand why a sentence, containing a whopping 27 words, needs a “summary”.
Never discount the power of ignorance.
If you look closely you can see that they changed a bunch of other amendments in that text as well…
On the whitehouse.gov website in the constitution section it says the second amendment “Gives citizens the right to bear arms.” Subtle but still crap. It protects the natural human right.
All blessings flow from mother government, all freedoms are allowed by mother government.
F.U., Obama.
I had that argument with a co-worker. He said if the 2A is repealed, the right to bear arms vanishes. You can guess what I said, and he looked at me like I had two heads. The concept of a natural right that isn’t granted by the government is incomprehensible to so many people these days.
If the 2nd Amendment is “interpreted”, perhaps more accurately “perverted”, as protecting the right of the “Militia” to bear arms, I find that interpretation totally lacking in justification.
That view ignores the unquestionable language of the 2nd Amendment that it is “the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms”, and not that of the “Militia” to do so. Those same “people” have several other individual rights listed and guaranteed in the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights, with the reiteration of the phrase “the right of the people”.
The militia is a sub-set of the people — originally defined as; free, White, able-bodied males 18-45 years old, excluding certain government officers. If the exclusion of certain officers of the government from the militia, and those who exceeded the age limit for militia service, simultaneously excluded them from the right to keep and bear arms, the Founders would be excluding themselves from the guarantee of the 2nd A. — not very likely to be their intent.
Aside from contradicting that clear statement of “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms ” in the 2nd Amendment, that “right of the militia” interpretation is as foolish as declaring “the army has the right to bear arms”.
That arms-bearing of any army, including the specific type of army known as a militia, is implicit in the nature of such armed forces. Armies, including militias, bear arms. It is what they do. They are ARMED forces. They carry guns.
The bearing of arms by any kind of army does not require an explicit statement, much less the enumeration and guarantee of a right to do so, by a Constitutional amendment in the Bill of Rights — a document concerned with the enumeration and guarantee of various “rights of the PEOPLE”.
A militia, like any other kind of army, is armed.
The only army I know that does NOT bear arms is The Salvation Army (lousy infantry, but a great brass section).
In short, that ‘argument’ is not specious, not even frivolous, but vacuous.
Robert Levy offered this parallel to the “Only the militia is allowed to keep and bear arms by the 2 A.” interpretation:
“Suppose the Second Amendment said, ‘A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.’
Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?”
+1, well said
If this is Advanced Placement, we are really in trouble.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The thing is, the nonsense doesn’t limit itself to the Second Amendment in that book:
http://www.conejo.k12.ca.us/Portals/49/Departments/Social%20Science/Palotay/Amsco.pdf
I can find nonsense upon most pages therein.
I think the right response is a consumer rights approach – ask the vendor to fix their defective merchandise. The school district’s textbook contract would have to include the vendor providing errata or revised texts at its own expense to correct errors and omissions. They’d be idiots not to have included such a clause.
I think I’d also like to know what *test* this study material was written to. I’ll give you 3:1 there’s a test out there that says that wrong characterization is the right answer.
While they’re at it,
– As an exercise have the AP students write a summary of similar length to the text book’s summary that’s more accurate.
– As another writing exercise, have them look at the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence to see what, if anything can be shortened without losing meaning.
– For extra credit, have them write a discussion of the relationship between editorial control and abstracting and deviation between what’s conveyed and the source material. Pay particular attention to agenda promotion, using one example from each of public policy, science & research reporting, and a particular field of the student’s own experience.
And last *an AP class?* A freaking AP class has to be told in some textbook a “simplified” version of that the bill of rights amendments say? They can’t read the actual amendments, in, you know, written English? You need only occasional side notes on archaic terms or usage – particularly ‘militia’ – for these to be perfectly comprehensible.
Anybody who needs that kind of pre-digestion to get what the amendments say has just flunked AP, except of course the course and textbook are really not building understanding, but crib sheets showing the expected answers in an upcoming test.
“I think the right response is a consumer rights approach – ask the vendor to fix their defective merchandise.”
Even better, make them republish and resistribute the damaged goods. I’m sure Texas has a Lemon Law.
It’s just a summary, eh? And a “supplemental” one, at that.
I taught a few English courses back in the day (college English), and the first assignment I always gave was to summarize paragraph or two from the textbook — I always chose a passage that discussed some aspect of the theory or principles behind writing. I did this because I wanted to know if they were able to catch the main ideas and *accurately* distill them into a couple of simple sentences.
I wasn’t a gun owner back then and the Second Amendment wasn’t on my mind, or I might have used it as a simple test case.
Anyone who turned in “the people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia” would have had it returned marked “no, try again.”
I was always surprised by how many students mistook a summary for a license to interject their own opinions or missed the meaning of the passage altogether (and because so many of them whiffed it, the summary wasn’t graded but discussed in class). I’m still constantly surprised (or maybe merely dismayed) by how many otherwise intelligent people, many of whom claim to be scholars of language, fail to comprehend such a simple, solid sentence.
I was always surprised by how many students mistook a summary for a license to interject their own opinions…
Oh, they’ve been taught that whatever they feel is valid, and the only thing that matters. Actually understanding someone else’s thought or reasoning ain’t on the agenda. Personally, I seek to understand and even be able to argue the “other guy’s” position. Doing so I always learn either why they are wrong or why I am.
I’m still constantly surprised (or maybe merely dismayed) by how many otherwise intelligent people, many of whom claim to be scholars of language, fail to comprehend such a simple, solid sentence.
Because they don’t want to.
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it.
Necessary for the preservation of the free state is the ability for its individuals (the people) to form a fighting force (militia) to protect freedom.
Necessary to ensure a free state is the ability to form a fighting force (militia) of well-equipped (well regulated) individuals (the people).
Therefore the right of individuals (the people) to be well-equipped (well regulated) ergo “keep and bear arms”, shall not be infringed.
Do I get to skip first semester history now?
I went to public school in Texas, and was subjected to all manner of non factual BS from textbooks that were sometimes older than I was. Almost all of these omissions and blatant falsehoods supported a right-wing interpretation of history – especially Texas history, which is pretty ugly. Slavery (the real reason for the 1836 revolt) and genocide of Native Americans were hardly mentioned.
Nowadays, they want to teach Creationism in science classes, and are doing their very best to downsize coverage Labor Movement and the Civil Rights movement and replace it all with Ronald Reagan and Phyllis Schlafly. Also, the Texas Republican Party platform famously calls for the elimination of “Critical Thinking Skills” in Texas Schools.
I agree with the criticism of the text in question, but come on! A molehill among Himalayas.
I can’t help but notice that their “summary” of the 4th doesn’t mention warrants or probable cause, either…
lol @ the commenters who believe TX has strong 2A rights.
You hit that one Dude. Ohio, sometimes liberal leaning, Kent State and all that Ohio has far better 2A rights than Texas.
Ever heard of rewriting history? How about the press is not free unless they do not slant or spin?
You know i learned far more after i graduated public school and joined the army than i ever did in school and i learned far more from my dad than anyone else 1 question everything
2 look at everything closely
3 if it sounds too good to be true it is
i applied it here to me it sounds as though she is covering her ass
well they appear to have “rewrote” the other ones too. in the 1st: Law has been made plural, and for the 3rd well “the people” do house soldiers in peacetime, by paying them in peacetime. which i think is against the intent of the 3rd amendment. in the time that it was written it was probably meant to preclude the existence of a standing army, which we have.
Not to marganalize the outrage but it’s probably not purposefully intentioned to be misleading or promote a political agenda. I teach AP Economics and use numerous “supplements” from many different publishing companies. It’s not uncommon to have typos as well as factually incorrent info. I think usually it’s lazy writing and editing. I also teach US History and taught US Government for a long time. I have used rewritten documents for students at a very low reading level. I spend a ton of time making sure I kept the authors original intent and would try to have it read by a “liberal” and “conservative” friend as another check. That being said the “summaries” are terribly written and should be corrected.
It’s criminal that they’re allowed to teach this abomination instead of the actual text of the Bill of Rights.
With the understanding this is a firearm site, the other “summaries” are just as egregious and disinforming. You have, most likely, several reasons to be upset; as opposed to just 1.
” In this supplement, it states that the following is a “summary statement.”
Here’s a summary statement of the school management:
YOU’RE FIRED for TEACHING BULLCRAP.
Evil, commie, libtard (democrat) bastards. And to think, many of you morons on this forum continue to vote democrat.
As pathetic is this is, it’s a symptom of a wider problem with out school public school system (I keep a VERY close eye on politics and I graduated high school in 2013, so I have pretty recent experience), which is the fact that kids are simply not taught anything about the government or the most important documents in our history. My high school was one of what seems like a very small portion that actually had a mandatory government class. So, I didn’t learn anything about the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the mechanics of our bicameral legislative branch, etc. until I was in 12th grade, and old enough to vote.
And I guarantee you that that’s not an accident. How can people vote effectively if they don’t understand how our government works, or even know the Bill of Rights or the more important sections of the Constitution? They can’t. Democracy will fail without a top-notch public education system (or at least one that teaches relevant information that allows us to be informed voters), which is what we’re seeing now, and have been seeing for decades.
The USA isn’t a democracy, and never was one, and wasn’t intended to be. It’s a Constitutional Republic. And the FedGov has WAY more power than the Constitution ever authorized. It’s time to cut off the head of the beast, and elect a true outsider: Me.