At issue? Controversial new curriculum standards that may affect how students across the country are taught.

In March, we had a report from Dan Harris about a textbook controversy in Texas with national implications.

Today, by a 9-5 vote, the 15-member Texas Board of Education approved the standards, which call for greater focus on the Christian traditions of the founding fathers.

For much of the past year, the Texas State Board of Education has been considering changes to its social studies curriculum, hearing from community members and debating alterations to the way the state will teach history.

Here’s a sampling of the proposed changes:

Excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader (from the left) and Ross Perot(from the centrist Reform Party). Meanwhile, the recommendations include an entry listing Confederate General Stonewall Jackson as a role model for effective leadership, and a statement from Confederate President Jefferson Davis accompanying a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

Language that qualifies the legacy of 1960s liberalism. Great Society programs such as Title IX—which provides for equal gender access to educational resources—and affirmative action, intended to remedy historic workplace discrimination against African-Americans, are said to have created adverse “unintended consequences” in the curriculum’s preferred language.

Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs.”

Take, for example, changing the language "Democratic society" to "Constitutional Republic." Or emphasizing the achievements of a Republican icon like Newt Gingrich.

Critics -- and there were plenty of them when we first blogged about this -- say the standards impose ideology in the classroom.

Why does what Texas does matter for the rest of the country? With 4.7 million public school students, textbooks publishers often tailor their curriculum to meet the desires of the Lone Star state.

In a written statement, the measure's sponsor, board member Don McLeroy, explained why he believes the current textbooks are unacceptable and needed revising.

"These standards are rife with leftist political periods and events: the populists, the progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society," McLeroy wrote. "Including material about the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s provides some political balance to the document."

McLeroy also succeeded in making changes to how Sen. Joseph McCarthy will be taught, painting the man – whose use of Congress to investigate alleged communist behavior in the 1950s has been widely repudiated – in a more favorable light.

The board's preliminary vote has met with some opposition.

"When partisan politicians take a wrecking ball to the work of teachers and scholars, you get a document that looks more like a party platform than a social studies curriculum," Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, a group that monitors public education in the state, told the Houston Chronicle.

The final vote on the new standards will be held in May. There are 4 million children in the Texas public school system, making it the second-largest market for textbooks in the country.

Tags: texas textbook controversy, texas board of education