(March 12) -- Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States,
Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas
Board of Education.

The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material
gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a
world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of
Education, the original curriculum asked students to "explain the impact
of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire,
Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on
political revolutions from 1750 to the present."

That emphasis did not sit well with board member Cynthia Dunbar, who, during Friday's meeting, explained the rationale for changing it. "The
Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions
were based," Dunbar said.

The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, "Explain the impact of the writings
of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean
Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William
Blackstone."

By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network
argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those
of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase "separation between church
and state."

According to USA Today, the board also voted to strike the word "democratic" from references to
the U.S. form of government, replacing it with the term "constitutional
republic." Texas textbooks will contain references to "laws of nature
and nature's God" in passages that discuss major political ideas.

The board decided to use the words "free enterprise" when describing the
U.S. economic system rather than words such as "capitalism,"
"capitalist" and "free market," which it deemed to have a negative
connotation.

Serving 4.7 million students, Texas accounts for a large percentage of the textbook market, and the new standards may
influence what is taught in the rest of the country.