The brown bear... of communism! Texas Board of Education's case of mistaken identity

I have not commented much on the Texas State Board of Educations review of standards other than science, because I claim no expertise in things besides science. But this story is too interesting not to pass on.

In its haste to sort out the state's social studies curriculum standards this month, the State Board of Education tossed children's author (Bill) Martin, who died in 2004, from a proposal for the third-grade section. Board member Pat Hardy, R-Weatherford, who made the motion, cited books he had written for adults that contain "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system."

Trouble is, the Bill Martin Jr. who wrote the Brown Bear series never wrote anything political, unless you count a book that taught kids how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, his friends said. The book on Marxism was written by Bill Martin, a philosophy professor at DePaul University in Chicago.