Once again the ugly Texas State Board of Education is raising its hideous hydra-head of ignorance and gross stupidity to impose its narrow-minded, its closed-minded, views on the rest of the nation.

The Texas board, in order to serve a narrow religious agenda, has made changes to Texas social studies textbooks that make false claims about our country’s history, promoting a narrow political ideology over actual fact and history. Conservative scag Phyllis Schafly becomes a more important figure of history than Thomas Jefferson — in their view.

Ugly elements of American history like the buying and selling and ownership of slaves would be whitewashed by the term “Atlantic triangular trade.”

Unfortunately, changes to Texas textbooks wind up affecting textbooks all across America. I do not want these kinds of historical distortions misleading students in Federal Way or elsewhere in our nation. I consider this to be toxic education and of no service to the American ideals of freedom, responsibility, the idea that all should have access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights. We have to own up to the mistakes of our past — in order to not repeat them.

And, we have to be vigilant in overseeing what our children learn, in order that they learn truth, not prejudice or historical or scientific fictions.

Karen Hedwig Backman, Federal Way