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Texas Size Changes to the Social Studies Curriculum
In the March 12th edition of the New York Times, James C. McKinley Jr. reports on the changes the The Texas Board of Education approved (approved–not simply suggested) to the history and economics textbooks used in Texas.
McKinley writes, “[the] curriculum will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.”
See the full article complete with specific changes by clicking here.
Nicole
March 18, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Justin,
Although I do agree that our textbooks are mostly leaning towards the left, none of them go so far as to claim that the Japanese were interned on the basis of national safety alone. I had said that I wouldn’t mind if the textbooks were altered to become less liberal; however, some of the changes seem to be so obviously deceptive that they should not be tolerated. Also, while the textbooks that I have looked at from the school generally are more liberal than conservative, often they also give the conservative point of view along with the liberal. It seems that the Texas textbooks would only portray the conservative viewpoint on many important topics. A few of the changes, such as the one mentioned above, seem to have been motivated by a very blatant form of prejudice: religious, racial, philosophical and otherwise. I absolutely agree that there should be some form of regulation on the topics within textbooks, yet as most politicians would be unwilling to compromise, it’s extremely unlikely that any regulations will occur during the next few years. How history is taught can, in a sense, change history itself. (Read 1984 by George Orwell and this will make sense…) I would also like to know the history about Thomas Jefferson and McCarthy that was omitted from my textbook. Although I consider myself a liberal on most issues, I feel that we, the students, should know both sides… Anyway, I suppose that it’s impossible to get a completely unbiased education. (Sigh…)
John Benson
March 25, 2010 at 11:28 pm
I think the answer is to receive an education from as diverse a pool of sources as possible. Much of the history that we learn in school is not facts but opinions and theories, and that makes sense. Facts are important only to the extent that they can be analyzed. Personally I would have loved a more statistical approach to history, identifying patterns and correlations, but I suspect that in this I represent a small population of students. So if we are to rely on the analysis of others, I think it is important to be exposed to a wide variety of opinions, and determine the specific bias of each source.
Aaron W.
March 26, 2010 at 4:05 pm
To say that our textbooks (at least for U.S. History) are “leaning towards the left” is a vast understatement. They would make MSNBC seem “fair and balanced.” The most outrageous example is with respect to McCarthyism. First off, let me just make it clear that I consider McCarthy just as much of a nutcase as most people probably do. But the textbooks go absolutely overboard when describing him, and use any chance they can get to describe anything remotely anti-communist as “hysteria,” “paranoia,” or “fear.” They completely ignore the fact that, what made McCarthy so bad was the fact that he accused people with absolutely no evidence against them, not the fact that he went after people who were possibly attempting to leak secrets to the Soviets or advocate violent communist revolution. Another appalling bias is in the descriptions of World War I. The textbooks basically sent the message that all young men went off to war because it looked like fun, and were entirely ignorant to its horrors, all because they were brainwashed by the evil “propaganda machine” to believe in concepts like sacrificing one’s life for one’s country. My point in saying this is basically to say that yes, the bias is absolutely as heavy as that of the Texan textbooks.
And by the way, just to sidetrack a little, saying that the Japanese-American internment was not caused by racism is not the same as saying that it was justified. I myself think it was a terrible thing, and not justified in the least, but I think that racism was just one of several factors in the decision. And even if somebody thought that it wasn’t a factor, that doesn’t mean that they’re a racist or that they think it was justified.
Nicole
March 16, 2010 at 10:12 pm
This is absolutely ridiculous. I read the whole article… Thomas Jefferson and his philosophy of the separation of church and state is getting cut from history textbooks??? Kids are going to be taught that the Japanese internment during WWII wasn’t because of racism??? And who would even TRY to justify Senator McCarthy? The guy was a nutcase who accused hundreds of innocent people of being Communists for his own personal gain. The rewriting of these textbooks in this fashion is an outrage. The people on the board are trying to influence children by giving them what is, in my opinion, a flawed education. If they think that the curriculum is too liberal, then simply add information which gives the opposite point of view. This is absolutely unacceptable behavior for anyone to force politics into education, let alone mix up and omit important information in order to change students’ opinions.
Justin
March 17, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Our textbooks are the same, they just err on the side of liberalism rather than conservatism. You’d be surprised what goes unwritten about people like Jefferson, and about the lack of perspective given to cases such as McCarthy (who I agree was a nutjob, but that’s really irrelevant).
Given that textbooks are not at all impartial (although some try and succeed more than others in this respect), I find it a bit hypocritical that you’re so outraged at Texas making their textbook strongly conservative while you don’t so much as mention the fact that our textbooks are decidedly liberal. Whether or not you agree with the changes being made, the heart of the issue is that assuring kids get an unbiased education is seemingly impossible.
It would seem to be an extremely important problem, but there’s really no realistic solution. Biased education is probably a polarizing force in terms of political view of the student, but there’s really nothing to be done.
All that being said, the way these textbooks are being modified borders on altering history, and I feel like educational textbooks should be presented as neutrally as possible. Given this, I feel that maybe some regulation or standardization of educational materials should be implemented. Though I have no real thoughts as to how this would occur.
dimitri halikias
March 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
justin, have you seen the new AP nsl textbooks? they are about as conservative as you can get
Justin
March 18, 2010 at 4:15 pm
That’s true, I remember the nsl textbooks being conservative as well (some of the comments on things such as climate change are quite laughable). I’m just pointing out the fact that many (if not all) textbooks are quite biased one way or another. The extent to which Texas is “editing” their texts appalls me, but there has been no real effort (in the form of regulation) to make sure students get an unbiased education. I guess it goes to show that it takes an incident to get people to care about an issue.