Textbook debate slogs through second day
HOUSTON
The board's decisions will set the standards for teaching
history and social studies to some 4.8 million public school
students for the next 10 years. The monthslong process of adopting
the curriculum has made the board a lightning rod for ideological
debate that was expected to intensify Thursday.
Some of the most prolonged debate came over whether to include
Confederate President Jefferson Davis' inaugural address with a
lesson on Abraham Lincoln's philosophical views; the board decided
to include Davis. Also under fire was a proposed change that would
refer to the slave trade as the "Atlantic triangular trade."
The board rejected a renewed effort to include labor leader
Dolores Huerta as an example of good citizenship in third-grade
history classes. Huerta, who worked alongside Cesar Chavez for
farmworkers' rights, was removed from the list in January amid
concerns that she was affiliated with socialists.
Democrat Mary Helen Berlanga offered an amendment Thursday to
restore Huerta's name, but the board voted to reject it. Huerta is
listed in a high school history class.
The board also rejected an effort to add former San Antonio
mayor and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros to
a fourth-grade example of notable Texans and spent prolonged time
debating which Civil War battles and heroes from Texas should be
added to a seventh-grade class.
One of the board's most outspoken conservatives, Republican Don
McLeroy, still plans to introduce several amendments Thursday that
promise to be contentious. One would require lessons suggesting the
nation's founders might not have intended a separation of church
and state as interpreted by the courts, while another would suggest
that the United Nations poses a threat to individual liberties.
The board is scheduled to take a final vote Friday, despite
repeated calls to delay the vote and start fresh.
The standards also will be used to develop state tests and by
textbook publishers that develop materials for the nation based on
Texas, one of the largest markets.
McLeroy believes the Texas history curriculum has been unfairly
skewed left after years of control by Democrats. He sees his job,
along with that of other conservatives on the board, as bringing it
back into balance.
But former Education Secretary Rod Paige, who served under
President George W. Bush, asked the board Wednesday to stop putting
politics in the state's classrooms.
In another McLeroy amendment, he proposes casting early 20th
century muckrakers and reform leaders such as Susan B. Anthony and
W.E.B. DuBois in a negative light by contrasting their tone with
the optimism of immigrants as told in a 1998 book written by
religious painter Thomas Kinkade.
Other proposals would tone down criticisms of the Red Scare and
Sen. Joe McCarthy's anti-communist hearings of the 1950s. They
would also portray the UN General Assembly, funding for global
humanitarian relief and global environmental initiatives as threats
to individual freedom.
Educators have blasted the proposed curriculum for politicizing
education. Teachers also have said the document is too long and
will force students to memorize lists of names rather than thinking
critically.