NEWS JUNKIE POST
Mar 28, 2010 at 12:03 amConservatives Continue To Target History Textbooks
EL PASO, TX — Conservatives in Texas continue to have one objective: inject history with right-wing ideology. The impact would not just affect students in Texas, but in most states too.
The mostly conservative 15-member Texas State Board of Education will make one final vote in May to approve more than 300 amendments to social studies textbook standards. The textbooks are not just used in Texas, but also in about 40 other states that cannot afford to print their own textbook versions.
CONTROVERSY
Since last summer, the Texas State Board of Education took on the task to revise the social studies textbooks for their public schools. They do this every ten years. The Board received feedback from conservative experts on the review-panel recommending that Newt Gingrich, The Moral Majority, and other conservative figures be added to the new textbook versions. The review-panel also questioned the historical value of having minority figures such as California labor-leader Cesar Chavez; first black Supreme Court Judge Thurgood Marshall; and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The review-panel recommendations have stirred great controversy, not only in Texas, but nationwide. On March 12, the Board held its second public meeting on the amendments to the textbook standards. The room was flooded by people who testified in favor and against the review-panel’s recommendations.
The four Democrats on the Board have been fighting to keep minority historical figures, but since they are outnumbered by 11 very conservative members, their influence is weak. The Board’s chair Gail Lowe, leads the pack of Republican members, including Dan McLeroy — an Orthodox Christian who has publicly said that shaping the textbooks is dictated by his world view, a Christian world view.
DEMOCRATS CONCERNED
Mr. Rene Nunez is one of the Democrats that sits on the Board. Nunez represents the students from 32 counties in Texas. He has argued to keep Cesar Chavez in the books and so far the results have been positive.
“We have [Cesar Chavez] on ‘History before 1877,’ and on the 5th grade,” Nunez said. “But he should be in other grades. We want him on the 8th and 7th grade.”
In contrast, Anglo figures who had less of an impact are being taught in more grade levels. Nunez mentioned Stephen Austin — he was a soldier that helped to organize the Battle of the Alamo. Austin lived in Texas only 6 years, but the Board has made him a hero. Students learn about Austin in 3 grade levels, but they don’t get to learn of other key soldiers who had deeper roots in Texas and who were Mexican Americans.
More than half of the students in Texas are Latino and black and education advocates argue that having minority historical figures in the textbooks can help students of color to be more engaged in the subject.
“That’s why our Hispanic students don’t take a lot of interest in history,” said Elvia Hernandez, the District Director of LULAC, the largest Latino civil rights organization in the country. “They don’t have anyone who they can relate to. These students need heroes that speak their language and have their color. But the Board doesn’t seem to want that.”
Conservatives on the Board have elevated the status of President Ronald Reagan; they have recommended that Reagan be taught in 5 grade levels, while at the same time they have decreased the number grades that President Franklin D. Roosevelt will be taught in.
Republicans like McLeroy claim that liberals have biased history and that by adding right-wing figures, students will be getting a more complete history of what has happened in the country. Educators argue, however, that the Board is trying to add things like Gingrich’s “Contract With America” without also adding the criticism it received.
“History is history,” Hernandez said. “You can’t change that just because the leadership wants something different.”
POINT OF NO RETURN
According to Nunez, neither the state legislature or the federal government can revoke the Texas State Board of Education’s decisions. If the majority votes to leave out Thurgood Marshall from the social studies textbooks, for example, that is what will happen.
“They haven’t added President Obama even if he is the first black president of the United States,” Nunez said.
There is the possibility that Board members could be influenced by powerful political figures who may advice them to not exclude certain historical figures from the textbooks, according to Nunez. But the likelihood that these politicians will show up to give testimony at the third and final meeting in May is unknown.
Because all members of the Board are elected by the people, Hernandez says that it will be up to voters to let conservatives members stay or be removed.
“Latinos need to vote, they need to do something,” said Hernandez. “This is what happens when you don’t vote.”
Read related story, published on January 10.
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I live in Texas and I can assure you that no one in this state should be in charge of deciding what children learn in school! I had to reeducate my children because their teachers didn’t feel it was necessary to teach them where the Liberty Bell is located or who Betsy Ross was! Their United States history was appalling! They never learned in school who William Penn was or where the first capital of the United States was located. They did, however, get taught that the invisible man in the sky was responsible for all of the good things that happened to them when they behaved and all of the bad things that happened to them when they didn’t! I did not send my girls to a public school so that they could be poorly educated in a parochial way! This state needs a major overhaul in the educational system. Thank you Governors Bush and Perry(who followed in your esteemed footsteps on education).
where’s the tea party? shouldn’t they be crying about the government trying to indoctrinate children?
The move gives the Liberals fiscal room to craft a policy platform that distinguishes them from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s governing Conservatives, who have pledged to balance the budget with spending curbs. Ignatieff said he would move forward on new investments in higher education &
student aid, support for homecare for aging Canadians, and innovation in clean energy. Under the Conservatives, “we’re looking at a long dark tunnel of cuts, austerity and not only a diminished role for government, but a diminished set of expectations for Canada,” Ignatieff, 62, said in an address closing the three-day conference & Politics
. “I think everywhere in this room we feel that impatience with those set of choices and a passionate desire to offer Canadians something better.”
I already teach my kids that history textbooks are bullsh#t. Read Howard Zinn if you have any doubt.
All this will do is further marginalize the right wingnuts in this country. Maybe 50 years ago you could just print up whatever and call it “history,” but thanks to electronic media, that game is changed forever. I invite the crazies to just get more crazy- their downfall will be even more definite.
Yeah, Zinn, and frankly, Wikipedia, are better sources. One good thing is that the growth of information technologies will make Texas less important, as digital editing and print-on-demand will soon kick this outmoded textbook-by-dumbed-down-committee method into the trash bin.
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