Part of my job is editing educational video modules for textbook publishers, and I can't even tell you the number of times we've been asked to change something "because it needs to sell in Texas."

I think the weirdest textbook change I've heard of was a short story that a teenage girl wrote that won a contest from YM magazine. This story was really good, and a publisher wanted to put it in their English textbook for seventh or eighth grade. One scene in the story had the characters sitting by a pool eating ice cream. California had recently put in rules that their schools should teach healthy eating habits, and the textbook committee asked the publisher to change it so that the characters were eating strawberries. I can't remember whether they actually changed that one or not.

Texas teaching the bible in public schools this year.

I can see how teaching the Bible as literature could be a good thing. The odds of the class not getting used to proselytize? I don't know.

"I think it is a good thing because a lot of kids don't have that experience, and they already want to take prayer out of school as it is, and you see where our kids are ending up!" said Tyler resident Laura Tucker.

Aha! If only we taught the Bible in school, our children wouldn't end up junkie prostitute murderers.

(I am really confused about this "a lot of kids don't have that experience" thing. Don't people go to Bible study already? And if you are not Christian, I'm pretty sure you know the Bible exists, and you have chosen not to study it.)

"The purpose of a course like this isn't even really to get kids to believe it, per se, it is just to appreciate the profound impact that it has had on our history and on our government."

And I'm pretty sure the history textbooks already mention that impact.

Like Ginger said, understanding the bible and the influence the bible has had is really important in english literature. And if you teach nothing with religious themes and nothing with sexual themes, and nothing with bad behavior, fiction is about as interesting as the back of a cereal box. However, I doubt that is the actual point of the Texas law. Plus, weren't the Texans the ones regulating lighting designers in a really stupid was?

President says something is wee-weed up. WHAT?

I want to believe that's a joke. I mean, I can't see how even Texas right-wingers would go along with eliminating George Washington and Stephen Austin from the history books.

On the other hand, I've been burned before by thinking, "No, that's just too craxy."

it is just to appreciate the profound impact that it has had on our history and on our government.

They should combine the class with the Qur'an as literature and in history since the impact on world politics is enormous.

Part of my job is editing educational video modules for textbook publishers, and I can't even tell you the number of times we've been asked to change something "because it needs to sell in Texas."

Oh yeah. I worked as an editor for a major textbook publisher for years and we had to do "special editions" and also put all controversial topics into ancillary materials. I worked on an AIDS one, and it just infuriated me that many states wouldn't use it. Arg.

I vaguely recall Texas insisting on removing a reference to prostitution in the Old West from a high school textbook (like, one sentence mentioning that there were prostitutes there) because American history classes are supposed to instill a sense of pride in our country, and that's not something to be proud of.