I don't have the patience to teach, so no :P But I am currently pursuing my major in History. Granted, I haven't done high school history in almost 10 years, and I can only remember my college history courses, but of all the books I had to read on US history, I had to read BOTH views. I had to read about the puritan movement in the colonies, and the enlightenment, etc. Hell, I had to do one of my essay papers on it. But we learned about it because it was history, and my next essay was on the founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson.
Also, to Faithful: I don't view it as pushing my own opinion on how history is taught, but I'm not pushing for textbooks to omit figures that I personally disagree with, like McCarthy, or Andrew Jackson. I could easily write a 20 page report on this, but a forum is no place for it :p Republicans however were a primary cause since they held the majority on the Board, but it also goes deeper, with this ultimately being a way to challenge separation of church and state, THAT age old debate.

Perfectly used.
Dune is just awesome
If I recall correctly, they removed Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum for the world history course. They claimed that his ideas were based mainly on the Enlightenment philosophers, which they were, and these philosophers were already covered extensively. Since this is a world history course, I have no problem with this. While Calvin would not necessarily have been the person I would have picked to replace him, he and the protestant movement were a big part of European politics for multiple centuries.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH EVERY FUCKING TIME I READ THAT IT MAKES MY FUCKING BLOOD BOIL!
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathm_rel_religion.htm
Read that. Its inelegant and a bit heavy handed but explains the basics of the situation

You should, in spite of its problems america is one of the most powerful nations the planet has ever seen and jefferson was one of the primary forces behind it. I've always thought that people should learn the philosophy behind the founding of nations so you can compare and contrast it with current reality and see just how far a nation has strayed from its ideals, just as the soviet union did, just as america has done and just as australia is starting to do

Just like most (well, none that i know of) countries doesn't say "you're by default a member of this here tennis club unless you make a conscious choice to join another one or quit tennis all together", they shouldn't specify or support a specific religion.

Fully agree, and that is exactly what that little snippet of goodness was about.
The problem is, Atheism was "bad' back then. Now, it is "hip". And as a result, Atheists want to fix the bits of God that snuck in. Religious people want to keep doing what they have been doing for years. So take that, step forward a few notches, and you get a nice war between "We wants our Religions!" and "We wants our Not-A-Religion!"
So no matter what any government does, they are going to be supporting a specific Religion or a Not-A-Religion. And that leads to compromise which makes everyone angry.

Those first four things are really be summarized as a single thing: how to communicate effectively. Unfortunately it seems that the ability and willingness to actually communicate is one of the skills most lacking in people, right along side critical thinking.
Once you understand the ridiculousness surrounding how textbooks are chosen it becomes amazing that students ever manage to learn anything at all from the. There's a good read by Richard Feynman about some of the textbook selection process that he experienced.
There is currently only a single member of congress who openly acknowledges being an atheist (Pete Stark). Politically, stating that one is an atheist is one of the best ways to make yourself unelectable in the US. Ready to backpedal on your statement yet?

Fuck....Just when religion leaves my school in terms of history study, it will be reintroduced. FUCK! This makes me question if I want to even study to be a History Teacher now. =(

Not really. Because people tend to vote based on perceived values, and religious people tend to have that in spades. So whereas saying you are an Atheist might (in some people's mind) imply you don't have values, saying you are religious implies you do. And I am sure that lots of Atheists will vote for someone based on those values. Because, like I said earlier, the last five commandments are really things nobody argues with :p.
It is a crappy double-standard, but that is life.
And just turn on the news any time in November and December. You'll see the force I am talking about as schools and the like can't use the word "Christmas". Even the News Media gets yelled at occasionally.
Look at pretty much any of the many "No Ten Commandments near government buildings" protests.
Is it the majority? Who the hell knows. Is it a powerful force? You betcha :p

Wall of text warning...
Heh smartarse. Its not religious offence, its blood boiling rage when people (innocently or deliberately) distort information to misrepresent reality.
So is xbox vs playstation (I don't think the wii really has fanboys), so is windows vs linux vs mac, so is liberal vs conservative, so is selflessness vs greed. The last 2 have the potential to significantly affect society but if emotion could be converted into electricity there's enough hate in the first 2 to power a city for generations. It doesn't matter what position you support in any polarised environment, any extremist position makes you into a dickhead.
My personal position is that I own both a 360 & PS3 (never seen a wii but I've also never seen a game for the wii I want), I run windows but have used linux extensively and no longer demand rubber gloves when touching a mac, I think both sides of politics are full of rabid unrealistic dipshits who care more about themselves than whatever they pretend to support and if you're excessively greedy then you're a cunt who's destroying the planet for the benefit of money which after a certain point is only a way of keeping score and if you're excessively selfless you're probably a dirty hippy!
Most PEOPLE don't want to be constantly told that they're wrong. I don't think idiotic college kids are to blame for the arrogant elitist bullshit you describe, its arrogant elitist dicks regardless of age. The situation is identical to every other polarising issue, there are loudmouth twats who need a smack in the mouth in EVERY debate whilst the silent majority facepalm or get embarassed to be associtated with them.
Thats because its the only philosophical position that can be proven by a single line of code
"IF beliefingod = 0 THEN Philosophy = Athiesm"
The problem that athiests have with religion is mostly because the dictatorial elements use their beliefs (which are not subject to change based on evidence) to influence government policy or society at large in an attempt to change reality to support their position, this serves to retard the advancement of the species as a whole. Knowledge and evolution are the only ways that a species can naturally advance and anything that holds back one of those avenues for advancement will damage us as a whole. A rational athiest influence on government policy would examine problems, implement solutions and then evaluate and change them as necessary, adapting their viewpoint and methodology as a result of the evidence. Naturally of course, placing the irrational dictatorial types of athiests in charge would be as bad as putting 4chan in charge.
I'd not vote for an athiest if I thought they were a dick who'd fuck up the country. Likewise I'd not refuse to vote for a christian / satanist / mormon / jewish / donkeyworshipper if I thought that they'd make for good government.
Now personally I'm not an athiest. Nor am I religious. My personality is such that I cannot accept a position without some reasonably logical underpinning. Personally I believe there are intelligent aliens in the universe despite not having seen any (although I do have scars I can't identify so I may have been getting my abduction experience memories wiped). The sheer number of stars in this galaxy alone numbers somewhere between 100 to 400 BILLION, there's estimated to be between 30 & 70 SEXTILLION stars in the observable universe (and who knows how many more that we can't see). Assuming that the development of life is a million to one chance (actually make it million and one to one chance, million to one chances turn up nine times out of ten) and the evolution of sentient life is a further million and one to one chance, that still leaves a proability of 29,999,940,000 sentient species. To believe that earth is the only habitable world with intelligent life against those odds is irrational in the extreme, the weight of math is against it.
When it comes to thieism vs anti-thiesm, I don't know the answer, I don't care about the answer and I doubt that there will EVER be a way to prove the answer. Until and unless there IS a way to prove one side or the other is correct, I think its a complete waste of time to seriously debate the topic outside of a purely hypothetical or a "look how this person's unproven and illogical opinion is affecting society" context, its just as useless as debating whether or not Captain Picard could beat up Han Solo (because we all know picard would win)

Please do, you can fight the system and actually teach fact rather than opinion

Alright, let's add a few more facts to the collection. As of 2008 only around 15% of the US population identified themselves as not being religious (people doing such surveys tend to not even use the term "atheist" as even those who are not religious often tend to associate negative connotations with the term and thus won't identify themselves as such). Additionally, other surveys show that far more than nearly any other demographic group atheists are regarded as untrustworthy as well as being associated with criminal or immoral behavior. So we have a group of people who are pretty much unelectable, a fairly small minority (and not being a swing voting block aren't targeted by politicians), and more maligned than just about any other demographic. Still going to claim there's some major atheist political power being thrown around?
You also make a critical mistake in thinking that atheists are the major driving force behind many of the political actions maintaining separation between church and state. Religious individuals are a far greater part of this, they simply don't want a the government promoting a religion other than their own, or are of the belief that religion and government should be kept separate. Additionally, the few cases where lone or small groups of atheists manage to get something changed (usually through lawsuits) are not cases of any kind of political/legislative change being affected, but rather those people saying (and the courts agreeing) "There are already laws about this; fucking follow them."

Damn does it suck to be a Texan right now..wait I am one :( . I agree with the OP, I think we should see things from every side.

Classical liberalism led to the notion of modern imperialism and a plethora of terrible problems for the 3rd world. You attack Zinn for dumb reasons, the only way he departs from a traditional historical perspective is that he tries to see through nationalism by identifying with the US no more than any other country, even though he happened to be born here. All his works are spot on; a bit more geared for the layman especially when contrasted with scholars like Chomsky, but as a WWII veteran himself I think he objectively knew more on the subject then any conservative armchair military historian that have diluted the actual record

In your dreams.

Your summary is true. I find it better to spell it out a bit more, however. People often think of effective communication as what is termed "public speaking" and possibly writing well. The receiving end of communications, reading and listening, is usually overlooked.
All five points could be summarized as "How to think well," but then people have no idea what I mean, heh.

How we communicate is a function of how we think; either one affects the other. Does a mechanic not vote? Does he not have personal relationships? Does he not have opinions about current concerns?
In the matter of getting one's ideas across, I'm not suggesting that everyone should sound like an urbane sophisticate informing others of Aristotle's opinion on the matter, but our mechanic might wish to persuade a stranger in a personal or business matter. Since debate usually consists in people heaving their assumptions on the table and then hurling slogans at one another, it can only be an improvement to teach people to communicate better.
It's not just a matter of getting ideas across, however. People educated to listen and read critically stand a better chance of making intelligent decisions. They might, for example, realize that spending money you don't have is a bad idea, or that making bad loans and trying to pass them off to someone else before they default will eventually catch up with you. Or that all the clever stuff people try to cheat the system has been tried a dozen time over and failed, and no it won't be different this time no matter how extra clever we think we are.
They might even realize that the answer to Jefferson in history is not trying hide him, but to present him to an educated student who will be able to discern both Jefferson's contributions to our nation's history and his limitations. Unfortunately, our mechanic who can fill out forms and get his ideas across passably will be likely to believe that censorship is a better idea, or if he believes Jefferson should be taught, he is unlikely to be able to say exactly why.