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HOME > PUBLICATIONS > Exclusive: Texas Textbook Wars Would Affect All of Our Nation’s Students

March 10, 2010

Exclusive: Texas Textbook Wars Would Affect All of Our Nation’s Students

The Editors

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Texas has been in the news quite a bit lately for a number of reasons: having a growing economy during a recession and using its Tenth Amendment rights with regard to crippling EPA mandates are two prime examples. Unfortunately, not all is well in the Lonestar State, especially when it comes to education.
 
The Texas State Board of Education is considering history curriculum standards that would change the way certain events are taught to children – if they are taught at all. Contested subjects include the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, Reconstruction, and the Great Depression.
 
 
"While the Texas SBOE debates whether to include things like Christmas, Paul Revere and the Liberty Bell – some are calling the textbook showdown the newest frontline of the culture war in the U.S.
 
It's a battle Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, is watching closely, "Well, if you grab the minds of the young people you grab the minds of the next generation." Sekulow believes a child's school board meeting is the most important governmental event a parent can plug into. "Parents don't check their rights to raise their children at the door to the schoolhouse," Sekulow cautions. He knows the stakes are high this week in Texas because, "This curriculum, once established, will affect a generation of students - how they think."
 
The problem goes beyond the Texas border. Because Texas is the single biggest textbook consumer in the nation, what they say will have a tremendous impact upon what students all over the nation will be taught in history class (also known as “social studies”) in the years to come.
 
And it’s not just the fact that states like Texas – and California too – wield so much clout that should have Americans worried. The way textbooks are crafted has changed drastically in recent years. Rather than having historians and established authors write the content, textbook publishers bring in numerous freelancers in order to create their books more quickly (and perhaps more cheaply?). According to Dr. Frank Wang, one-time president of Saxon Publishing, it's become more of an "assembly line" system, rather than a carefully crafted "work of art." And Gilbert Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, says, "There's no doubt that identity politics have contributed to the decline of textbook quality over the last twenty years," adding that an editor at a top publisher told him that the squeaky wheel gets the attention.
 
Among the myriad of “squeaky wheels” are Islamic activists who want as rosy a picture of Islam painted in textbooks as possible. Sewall has written extensively on this subject, and an important series of articles can be found here at FSM. Publishers, Sewall writes,
 
hire Islamic propagandists as ‘academic consultants’ and allow them to screen lessons.
 
Islamists and multiculturalists on and off campus are eager to restrict what is said about Islam in public schools. Middle East centers and associations can be ideological machines, promoting Islam with a caustic anti-Western spin. Left-wing historians are prominent in textbook authorship.
 
True, all religious groups try to use textbook politics and policies to their advantage. Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin - the three main educational publishers - are in the business of quieting the unquiet. But in the process, for fear of giving offense to professional injustice collectors and propagandists, history textbooks give a false picture - or no picture at all - of grave threats to the US and world.
 
This picture of Islam is accompanied by lost reverence for - or even interest in - Western achievement and power.
 
 Of course, there is also the concern that simply not enough history is being taught in the classroom, leaving students with an incomplete picture of the history and culture of their nation.
 
Americans should keep their eye on the Texas textbook battle. It could mark a critical turning point in our educational system that may well shortchange students – our future leaders.
 
Brought to you by the editors and research staff of FamilySecurityMatters.org.

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It is essential that our students text books accurately portray history and the important place which "God" has
had in the formation and continued development of America. Also there should be even balance shown for the views of the major political parties. Leftist extreme positions such as those promoted by the ACLU should be eliminated from textbooks. Focus should always be on the positive contributions that America has made in the world.

posted by: Joseph Mankawich
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 09:34 AM

I totally agree with Joseph Mankawich. Furthermore, I hope and pray these articles will aid in waking up the parents of the children you will be subject to false history. It is imperative that America's children know the rmaifications of embracing abridged, and false historical information. The most important in my mind, is the diabolical way Islam will be portrayed as a peaceful religion. Beware, the coming firstorm resulting from false teaching of the false prophets.

posted by: Jerome Roth
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 09:55 AM

Please forgive the mispelled words in my comment above, it's the slow computer, not my lack of education. Although, my proof reading obviously needs some work.

posted by: Jerome F. Roth
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 09:59 AM

The textbook issue was never an "issue" when California's liberal democrats ( socialist, communists, Marxists ) were writing it. It only now becomes an issue? How about we let the parents in on what WE want our kids to learn and how we want it portrayed? Is there a way to do that? YES. Transparency and vouchers. Get rid of the portion of real estate taxes that are school taxes. Give parents a CHOICE. Without choice, it's a fascist system. The government is teaching the kids what THEY want. This inherently creates a TYRANNY. Ask the Marxists. They know how to use the system for it.

posted by: txlady706
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 10:01 AM

An excellent respurce you can contact for a detailed discussion on this very issue is Texas State Legislator, Peter Morrison. I have received his regular enewsletters on the state of Texas education for years, and can highly recommend his views and insight on the state of not only the textbooks, but the increasingly revisionist curriculum in Texas.He can be reached through www.petermorrisonreport.com

Thanks for bringing up this vital subject.

posted by: Lance M Hillier Sr
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 10:04 AM

Pardon my French-But WTF?....I'm a grandmother and see this kind of selective deletion as short- changing our nations youth. They should get the whole picture and form their own opinions about what they learn! It's bad enough in this economy schools are dropping music & arts and in some cases phys. ed. The dropout rate has risen substantially and those who do graduate are lacking in reading/math skills!

posted by: Debbie Zwirtz
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 11:57 AM

This is part of decades old plan by the radicals of the 60's to take their radical ideas and impose them on students, K-12-College. They have already succeeded to a large extent.
If I were king, everyone would read and pass a test on "Indoctrination U" by David Horowitz 135pp only, as well as "Stealth Jihad" by Robert Spencer. Those two books tell a lot about the infiltration of radicals, Islamists, and radical homosexuals into our school system and our government, yes, even the FBI.

We really must get the information, then take action to stop this takeover of our education system.

Whoever controls our education system will ultimately control our country.

posted by: Info Warrior
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 03:54 PM

Many of the comments expressed here about the "radicals of the 60s" are valid. At the same time, however, it cannot be denied that the Religious Right has been one of the squeakiest wheels of all in the making of contemporary social studies textbooks--and is, not coincidentally, VERY well represented on the Texas school board. The result? The textbook industry is caught in the middle of the push-pull culture wars. I think a good solution is not to attack the publishers but to supplement what children learn at school with additional materials at home, which family members can discuss together. That way, parents have much greater control over what and how their children learn--and in the process they may learn a great deal themselves about the fascinating and very diverse histories of people everywhere.

posted by: Gaudeo
Monday, March 15, 2010 at 11:07 AM

The recognition that a country is truly working to ensure that all of its citizens will be able to enjoy a rewording life is its educational system. The ancient Greeks understood this and established a viable educational program. We in the United States, however have tied our educational program into a financial Gordian knot with the result millions are denied an adequate chance to better themselves through our schools. We also failed to understand that there is a direct connection between an increase in crime and the neglect of our schools. Classes of thirty or more students certainly are creating the scenario for failure leading to high dropouts and increase in neighborhood gangs.

One solution is to increase taxes on a sliding scale to ensure a functional educational program that will meet the needs of every child.

Another approach would be to develop a national school system that would ensure equal funding for all schools. This would mean that school boards would be removed and closer ties between districts, counties, states, and the nation would be made.

Education is a basic right and must be made available free of charge for all, our country depends upon it!

posted by: W. R. Cole
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 05:52 PM

I believe that we need to teach history,all history,American and world history,because of the diversity of people in the U.S.They should know about the country they live in,and their countries of origin,no slants,FACTS ONLY!

posted by: Philip Persichetti
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 07:41 PM

Encuentro que no sois derecho. Soy seguro. Escriban en PM.
http://www.shampes.com/

daris

posted by: danielle
Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 08:07 PM