Exactly. This is what happens in blue states: protectionism and regulation designed to benefit a defined constituency while screwing the majority. This law never would be passed or enforced in Texas.
If not sarcastic it's wildly ignant. Texas special interests ensure that majority of text books are bland, puritanical and contain creationist pseudo-science.
Protection-of-trade laws are also a pretty common feature of "red states" in general; I don't think there's a discernible partisan divide. For example, Utah recently had its laws surrounding regulation of hair braiders partially invalidated (http://www.ij.org/utah-hairbraiding-release-8-9-2012). There was also a famous case in Louisiana over monks selling caskets without a license.
No joke. Thomas Jefferson was removed from history textbook and replaced with Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin because he was a Deist and coined "Separation of Church and State".
The Jefferson thing is a very bad example since he is still covered and mentioned. The issue in question was should he be discussed as an example of an Enlightenment Philosopher and only as relates to political revolutions. That was the previous standard. The previous phrasing constrained discussion in the context of the enlightenment and not the broader context of his political ideas.
When they revise their standards they change a lot of things. Here is the actual change they made. This is found on page 25 of the list of changes to High School Social Studies:
BEFORE:
> explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Thomas Jefferson, and William Blackstone on political revolutions from 1750 to the present;
AFTER:
> explain the political philosophies of individuals such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Thomas Jefferson, and William Blackstone;
and this is from page 42
BEFORE:
> analyze the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison on the development of the U.S. government;
AFTER:
> identify the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, George Mason, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson, on the development of the U.S. government;
These are the actual changes. When attacking this change one should be aware of what they are. To comment on this without knowing what the changes were, such as the NYT did in their article, is simply ignorant. Unfortunately the quality of their reporting has gone down considerably in recent years and fact checking is clearly not done on many articles. The claim that Jefferson is "being removed from textbooks" is absolutely incorrect and thus a poor example to continue using in criticizing Texas.
Franklin is required to be covered in grades 3, 5, and 8. Paine is required to be covered in grade 8. The proposed standards and their changes are available for reading to all at the Texas Education Agency site. There is no excuse for not educating yourself rather than trying to score points spouting falsehoods as trollbait. Such uninformed comments are the problem. Do you consider yourself educated? What state did you go to school in? They seem to not have required critical thinking. It is exhausting and exasperating to constantly be correcting non-factual statements on the internet by people who haven't bothered to check facts and rely on absurd sources such as the New York Times that are known for repeating lies in pursuit of political agendas. Truth be damned, eh? It's a terrible way to live.
Texas and California ensure that the majority of textbooks are just bland, period.
Those are big dog, major-population states that adopt textbooks at the state level (most states make textbook decisions at the school district level, others do use state-level adoption, but don't have enough population to have much market clout).
To sell well, a K-12 text has to a) not offend Texas and b) not offend California. Good luck with that.
