The Texas State Board of Education has been getting a lot of press this week for their controversial revisions of social studies curriculum standards. Today, they decided to make some things clear on the subject of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson.

You can read the statement here. It acknowledges that the board removed Jefferson from a list Enlightenment thinkers. But, basically says, don’t worry students in Texas are still going to study him plenty - in fifth-grade, eighth-grade and then in U.S. Government in high school.

But their explanation wasn’t sitting well with the Texas Freedom Network, a group that bills itself as a mainstream voice to counter the religious right.

They quickly put out a press release in which their president Kathy Miller said: 

“This isn’t a contest to see how many times someone is included in the standards. The issue here is why the board would not want students to learn that people struggling for freedom around the world have looked for more than two centuries to Thomas Jefferson and his ideals for inspiration. This is yet another example of board members making decisions about things they clearly don’t know anything about instead of listening to teachers and scholars who do.”

Read more: http://startelegram.typepad.com/extra_credit/2010/03/state-board-issues-clarification-on-jefferson.html#ixzz0ii9ILfZk