It's referred to as the "Texas Textbook Massacre," and it's easy to see why. Last Friday, the Texas Board of Education approved a "template" for all elementary and high school history, sociology and economics textbooks--a template that ignores or falsely attributes many contributions and achievements of minority groups.
According to author Diane Ravitch of The Daily Beast, the Texas state board is the largest textbook buyer in the state, which bestows on it the power to say what should and should not appear in the books. While FOX News says the revisions are an effort to be sure "our children will know about the founding principles of this country," others lament changes they believe rewrite history.
Among these changes, New York Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr. reports, the board approved a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement. The board voted to include both the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers and emphasize the role conservatives played in the passage of civil rights legislation. The board also approved the inclusion of the "unintended consequences" of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation, all of which were meant to alleviate inequality and racial injustice.
At the same time, the board voted to emphasize the success of the "free-enterprise system" (because "capitalism" has too many negative connotations) and the central role of Christianity in shaping America. (Thomas Jefferson was removed from a list of writers who inspired revolutions, only to be replaced by St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin.)
On the upside, the media I reviewed tended to disparage the Texas board's decision, emphasizing that there were no historians, sociologists or economists included in the decision-making process and detailing the pitfalls of the board's control over textbook publishers. However, these criticisms do little to help the third graders who may grow up thinking the Selma to Montgomery march was started by Orval Faubus (the Arkansas governor who prevented nine black students from entering Little Rock Central High School after Brown v. Board of Education).
How do we prevent a generation of students who know little about the contributions of black protesters, Hispanic migrant workers or Asian railroad workers? We could hope students make it to college, where the textbooks aren't controlled by the state. But that would be letting non-college bound students slip through the cracks and enter the workforce with a high school diploma and a skewed version of America's past.
Like so many periods in American history (many of the very periods the Texas state board chose to rewrite), the effort to include minorities must be led by a pioneering group of teachers, parents, students and media. Teachers can and should supplement their curriculum with coverage of minority contributions, while parents can provide the counter to "America=white + Christian" at home. Both white and minority students can rally together to start discussions on minorities' role in American history, and the media should take it upon themselves to feature these discussions and their implications. If the University of California is any indication, both students and teachers are actively invested in race issues in the educational system.
While it may be asking a lot of parents, teachers and students to look outside the template laid out for them, the Texas state board is asking even more of minority students to forget their place in American history.
Photo Credit: Texas Tribune
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