VELSHI: “The American public education system has lost the plot”

Teachers in the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas recently took part in a training session on new guidelines for what books they are allowed have in their classroom libraries to line up with the new regulations in the Republican Texas House Bill 3979, and its soon to be updated version, the Republican Texas Senate Bill 3. They were told if they had books on the Holocaust, they need books with ‘opposing views’ and ‘other perspectives’ as well. It is crucial for students to learn and discuss different perspectives and how and why bad things happen in history - including genocides, war crimes, and slavery -- in order to better recognize and respond to them the future. There is a way to discuss important events in history, and to learn how to think critically about different perspectives.  But once that perspective includes placing opposing views of the Holocaust on the same level as the (almost) universally accepted truth, the American public education system has lost the plot.Oct. 16, 2021