When this story first came out last year claiming that Thomas Jefferson was removed from the curriculum because he was an atheist (which he was not), I went and

When this story first came out last year claiming that Thomas Jefferson was removed from the curriculum because he was an atheist (which he was not), I went and looked at the actual differences made to the state standards so I could have a laugh. As it turns out the claims in the story were false. This latest version at least gets right that he is not on the list of influential Enlightenment era authors. That's true. Not pointed out though is that he is more covered throughout the rest of the curriculum than just about any other figure. Also relevant and not mentioned in these articles is the simple fact that Jefferson's two books were both private projects which he didn't publish or intend to, his Jefferson Bible edit and the Farm Book detailing daily goings on at his farm. As these were not published in his era they are certainly not major Enlightenment era works. His biggest writing contribution is in the large number of personal letters he wrote to friends and colleagues, which were not published as a collection during his lifetime. That these establish him as a major enlightenment era writer is not something beyond doubt. We can reasonably include the Declaration of Independence as a product of Enlightenment thinking, and Jefferson was the author of this work which summarized the thoughts of himself and others who met at the time. But we must remember it is a single brief work and it is comprehensively covered in the curriculum, just not under the brief list of suggested Enlightenment authors. As far as the claim that listing the middle names of Presidents is teaching children a false history, it is an absurd claim provided the middle names are accurate. Regarding the discussion about creationism, creationism is not mentioned or included anywhere in the Texas curriculum standards. A few years ago the media jumped on Kansas curriculum standards, and yet here we are and Kansas continues to do quite well compared to other states on things such as SAT and ACT scores, which unlike state achievement tests are comparable between states because the same test is given in all states. Because of this embarrassing fact that Kansas schools do quite well in impartial evaluations by respected outside parties, this genre of article has given up with the Kansas argument and moved on to Texas. I recommend that anyone interested in whether the claims in the article are true download the Texas curriculum standards for themselves and check, in addition to refreshing their knowledge of history. edit: It's always amusing when one posts facts that are so uncomfortable to propagandists and the uneducated that they not only downvote that post, but they go back and systematically downvote everything one has posted in the last week. Such actions show the failure of the propagandist to be able to form a coherent response in the face of reality.