Texas Board of Education brings on Christian liar David Barton to rewrite Social Studies standards
The GOP's favorite Christian pseudo-historian will get to sabotage history classes across the state—and beyond
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After seeing Oklahoma sabotage its own students by adopting new social studies standards that include misinformation, disinformation, and Christian Nationalist, Texas Republicans must have gotten jealous. They’re on the verge of adopting their own social studies standards next summer, but they’re eager to prove they can harm students way more than other red states.
How are they doing it? By bringing on Christian pseudo-historian David Barton as a consultant.
Last week, two members of the State Board of Education, Brandon Hall and Julie Pickren, announced that Barton would be their “Expert Content Advisor” during the revision process.
David Barton’s expertise in American history will be a valuable asset to the TEKS [Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills] revisions, particularly following the [State Board of Education’s] recent vote to ensure that American and Texas history are taught at every grade level. His commitment to historical accuracy and his passion for teaching the exceptionalism of Texas and America reflect the values and priorities of the parents and taxpayers represented by Member Julie Pickren of SBOE District 7 and Member Brandon Hall of SBOE District 11.
The idea that David Barton gives a damn about “commitment to historical accuracy” is laughable when you know that he wrote an entire book about Thomas Jefferson that was so full of bullshit that his Christian publishers had to pull the book from the shelves, saying, “There were historical details—matters of fact, not matters of opinion—that were not supported at all.” (The book was ironically titled The Jefferson Lies.)
Barton has made a career out of twisting and distorting the words of the Founding Fathers and the Bible in defense of Christian Nationalism, homophobia, and bigotry. He’s the sort of Christian who believes AIDS is God’s way of punishing sexually active gay people.
He’s such an egregious Christian liar that he even claimed to have an “earned doctorate” that was later revealed to be a hoax.
He’s nothing more than a self-marketer who convinced gullible Republicans that he was an expert in American history despite having no expertise, no formal credentials, and lying his ass off. It’s only because he’s been doing it for a while, through his WallBuilders ministry, and convinced white evangelical pastors to platform him, that he’s become popular among Republicans who hate the idea that kids might learn accurate comprehensive history because they may realize that America’s past isn’t as rosy as conservatives want to pretend.
The grift has paid off for him, especially in Texas. He was vice chair of the Republican Party of Texas for nine years, until 2006. And in 2010, when the social studies standards were being revised at the time, he was also picked to be a content advisor. It led The Guardian to run a headline titled “Texas schools board rewrites US history with lessons promoting God and guns.”
You can read his contributions to that revision here. One example of his input? He argued that it was a “false premise” to say racial and ethnic minorities helped “expand political rights in America,” and that kids should be taught it was white men who did that. What about women’s suffrage? That was also because of men. He also said that Colin Powell was a bad option when teaching kids about people who contributed to society in the “areas of civil rights, women’s rights, military actions, and politics.” So was Cesar Chavez.
So now he’s doing it again, at a time when Texas Republicans have shown repeatedly how eager they are to shove Christianity into the curriculum—these are the people, after all, who passed a law to hang Ten Commandments posters in every classroom. We already know what they want to do. Now they can just point to Barton as justification when they know damn well he’ll just rubber-stamp their agenda.
Thankfully, there are well-established local groups trying to sound the alarm about this:
The Texas Freedom Network, a progressive advocacy organization, in a statement Wednesday criticized the decision to appoint Barton as an adviser, whom the group said could jeopardize a process that should be focused on education, not politics.
“This appointment is a flashing red light warning that the social studies overhaul appears already to be headed off the rails and into a political swamp of misinformation and distortions,” said Carisa Lopez, the group’s deputy director. “The board members who appointed this phony historian clearly care more about pushing a political agenda than teaching millions of Texas kids the truth in our public schools.”
They’re way too kind. The TFN, by the way, maintains a long list of things Barton is wrong about.
The fact that this is all a game for Republicans should concern voters across the state. Even when announcing Barton’s appointment, Board Member Brandon Hall ended his post with a nod to Donald Trump: “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!”
David Barton isn’t any credible person’s idea of the “foremost American historian.” He’s literally not a historian, much less a prominent one. He’s just an ignorant Republican’s idea of a smart person because he sounds like he’s read books. But as any lazy student writing a book report at the last second could tell you, just because you reference books in a report doesn’t necessarily mean you understand any of them.
Barton represents what white evangelicals want from their leaders: He’s a confident bullshitter. He doesn’t just lie, he repeats lies even after they’ve been debunked because he knows damn well he has to keep his narrative going to maintain any access to power.
The fact that Barton is part of this committee (again) shows you how little Texas Republicans value students’ education—and truth itself. By elevating Barton, they’re not just tinkering with the curriculum, they’re willfully poisoning the well of knowledge for millions of kids. Barton is a fraud whose career depends on rewriting history in service of Christian Nationalism, and the state GOP knows it. His presence on this committee isn’t some accident; it’s a deliberate choice to replace evidence with ideology, facts with fiction, and scholarship with propaganda.
The bigger picture here is also devastating. Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the country. What gets approved there shapes what millions of kids in other states end up learning. So when Texas Republicans invite a professional liar to redefine history, they aren’t just sabotaging their own students; they’re sabotaging American education as a whole.
Maybe that’s the real lesson of Barton’s appointment: In the ongoing Republican War on Facts, kids are always collateral damage.
"the exceptionalism of Texas" - I know this is serious, but that made me laugh.
David Barton is a LIAR. Frankly, that should say it all. His reputation among those of us who value unsullied history is, at its best, notorious, and at worst, despicable and utterly unacceptable, in an educational environment or anywhere else. The fact that his ridiculous book on Thomas Jefferson was pulled from publication for its blatant inaccuracies and outright lies should be reason enough NOT to have him involved in Texas education at any level.
And yet there he is, welcomed apparently with open arms (and an open checkbook, I would guess). DISGUSTING.