It’s generally held that Texas has more control over America’s curriculum than all the other states put together. Why? Because Texas (a) is a big market, and (b) has a stringent Board of Education that reviews every textbook used in the state. If you, Mr. Publisher, want to sell a lot of books, you have to clear every word with a panel of fifteen Texans, ten of whom are Republicans, and at least one of whom thinks public schools are a “tool of perversion.” How she got on the school board is hard to imagine.

I shouldn’t have to care about the Texan schoolbook review—except that a lot of non-Texan schools end up buying the textbooks that conform to those “standards.” For instance: As of this week, Thomas Jefferson is no longer a major Enlightenment thinker (too Deist). Separation of church and state is a debatable concept, not a piece of constitutional bedrock. Confederate leaders are positioned alongside Abraham Lincoln, out of some perverse idea of “balance.” (That last one especially kills me. “We’re not ashamed of our heritage—of the Southern way of life!” Well, when it comes to certain parts of it, perhaps you should be. Heaven knows I’m not thrilled with a lot of my own ethnic associations.)

When my kid goes to school, chances are he’s going to have at least a few books like these on his desk. You know things are going down the wrong road when you start considering certain positions previously held only by fringey folks, and when I read about this latest set of Texan criteria, the word “homeschooling” popped into my head, just for a moment. If my son weren’t coming home each night to a roomful of actual book—as well as an environment where his mom and dad can explain to him things like cultural history, social justice, and the right to reject religion if you so choose—I’d start to worry.