Religion in Textbooks

Here's a video you may or may not want to watch. It's essentially a bunch of moms talking about their feelings in light of an ongoing controversy over wether or not some conservative and Christian elements should or shouldn't be required in history textbooks used in Texas public schools. I'll give you a short synopsis; some of them kinda support it, and some kind of oppose it. One mom points to the fact that many events and historical decisions were influenced by religion, so that should certainly be included. Another mom says that actual studies of world religion, and any possible religios controversy or offensive content, should at least be optional.

A Texas college student from another article took a somewhat more confrontational position:

"We're concerned that the far right members on the state board are trying to force their personal and political agendas on the children of Texas"

Here's the real answer, though; they're all wrong. Or they're all right, depending how you look it it. What is certain is that they all fail to identify the problem.

Think about it this way; there are thousands of overtly religious private schools throughout the nation; Christian schools, Muslim schools, Jewish schools, etc. In lots of these schools, every student must learn one religion, and that religion will be presented as absolutely true. Yet, no one suggests that this is an injustice. What's the difference?

If you don't like what a private school teaches, you can leave, just like you can leave a public school if you don't like what they teach. So that's not the difference.

If you are a student attending a private school and you disagree with some religious material presented, you have less ability to contest that material in that private school than you do in a public school. If anything, there's more freedom in a public school environment, so that sure isn't the issue.

If you don't like what a private school teaches, you can complain to the school board and they can change it. That can also be done, to a certain degree, in a public school.

Here's where the injustice lies.
If you don't like a private school for some reason, such as the curriculum content, their bullying policy, their religious practices, or the quality of their service and you decide to leave, you can quit paying them tuition. Not so with a public school. Unlike private, non-coercive companies, public schools get your money whether they deliver a satisfactory product or not, heck, whether they even serve you directly or not.

That's the injustice, and as long as it continues, taxpayers will rightfully feel wronged when they are forced to pay for an educational service that doesn't deliver what they want, whether it's quality education, a safe environment, more or less sex ed, or whatever.

What we all need to realize, though, is that the problem isn't on the service end at all. If someone set up a school that guaranteed sub-par results, explicit and controversial sex ed and a strictly evolutionary and humanistic perspective in all their textbooks, you wouldn't feel wronged at all so long as you weren't compelled to pay that school tuition.

The injustice happened when we were taxed, but no one seems to have noticed.