This relates to my previous post on Moses, the U.S. Constitution and accuracy in social studies textbooks. Important debate continuing today at Texas' State Board of Education.
-Angela
Texas' New Public School Textbooks Promote Climate Change Denial and Downplay Segregation
And they could end up in your kid's classroom too.
| Wed Sep. 17, 2014 10:48 AM EDT
Citizens gathered outside a 2010 Texas State Board of Education meeting to protest changes to the social-studies standards.
The battle over Texas textbooks
is raging once again. On Tuesday, hundreds of citizens turned out for
the first public hearing on the controversial social-science materials
now under review as part of the state's contentious once-in-a-decade
textbook adoption process. During the all-day proceedings, activists and
historians pointed out numerous factual errors and complained that the
books promoted tea party ideology while mocking affirmative action and
downplaying the science linking human activity to climate change. "They
are full of biases that are either outside the established mainstream
scholarship, or just plain wrong," Jacqueline Jones, who chairs the
history department at the University of Texas-Austin, said from the
podium. "It can lead to a great deal of confusion in the reader."
Other speakers raised concerns about the
treatment of religion, especially the tendency of some books to play up
the role of Christianity in our nation's founding. Kathleen Wellman, a professor of history Southern Methodist University,
noted with dismay that a popular civics text was filled with references
to Moses and claimed that the biblical prophet had inspired American
democracy. If the draft texts are adopted as is, she argued, Texas
children could grow up "believing that Moses was the first American."
Conservatives, meanwhile, complained that the books gave too much space
to liberal figures such as Hillary Clinton.
It's a high-stakes debate. Because Texas has one
of the nation's largest public school systems and some of the most rigid
textbook requirements, publishers have traditionally tailored textbooks
they sell nationwide to the Lone Star market.
Tuesday's
hearing comes on the heels of several reports claiming the proposed
social-science textbooks, which span grades K-12, are rife with bias and
factual errors. One analysis commissioned by the Texas Freedom Network,
a nonprofit watchdog that advocates church-state separation, found that
some materials downplayed the hardships blacks faced under segregation
and "gave nods to neo-Confederate arguments" that states' rights rather
than slavery was the driving issue behind the Civil War. The group also
maintains that some books take a tea party line on issues such as
taxation. As an example, TFN cites a passage in the high school American
government text submitted by Pearson, the world's largest textbook
publisher:
In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. taxes are "what we pay for civilized society." Society does not appear to be much more civilized today than it was when Justice Holmes made that observation in 1927. However, "what we pay" has certainly gone up.
The book makes no mention of the potential
benefits of taxation, including safety net programs such as Social
Security and Medicare, that have been adopted since 1927 and have
slashed poverty, especially among the elderly. In another chapter, the
Pearson text takes aim at affirmative action with a cartoon showing two
aliens in a space ship landing on Earth. Pointing toward a man in a suit
and tie, one of them exclaims: "This planet is great!—He says we
qualify for affirmative action!" The only context is a caption asking
readers to parse the cartoon's meaning.
Another report,
released Monday by the Oakland-based National Center for Science
Education, which has previously clashed with the Board of Education over
its dubious treatment of evolution, highlights a handful of "deeply
concerning" passages in those social-science texts that deal with
climate change. The report cites a passage in the teacher's edition of
the sixth grade World Cultures & Geography text issued by McGraw-Hill, the nation's second largest textbook publisher:
Scientists agree that Earth's climate is changing. They do not agree on what is causing the change. Is it just another natural warming cycle like so many cycles that have occurred in the past? Scientists who support this position cite thousands of years' worth of natural climatic change as evidence. Or is climate change anthropogenic—caused by human activity? Scientists who support this position cite the warming effect of rapidly increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The book goes on to quote two reports on global
warming. One is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a
global outfit comprised of climate scientists who have assembled a vast
body of evidence that human beings are to blame; the other is from the
Heartland Institute, a conservative think thank, which has a long
history of shilling for dirty industries (including Big Oil) and has
tried to undermine the science linking human activity to climate change.
"Scientists who study the issue say it is impossible to tell if the
recent small warming trend is natural," reads the Heartland passage
quoted in the book. "Thousands of peer-reviewed articles point to
natural sources of climate variability that could explain some or even
all of the warming in the second half of the twentieth century."
Pearson's fifth-grade social-studies book contains a similarly skewed description of climate change:
Burning oil to run cars also releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Some scientists believe that this carbon dioxide could lead to a slow heating of Earth's overall climate. This temperature change is known as global warming or climate change. Scientists disagree about what is causing climate change.
In reality, as NCSE points out, there's no
indication that climate change is a passing phase, and 97 percent of
climate scientists agree that human activity is the primary driver.
Besides distorting the underlying science, NCSE's
programs and policy director Josh Rosenau says many of the 104
social-studies textbooks up from review give climate change short
shrift. "In this day, social-studies education ought to include an
in-depth discussion of climate change," he told Mother Jones.
"There are serious policy implications. There are cultural, geographic,
and economic consequences. But if you include the topic, it becomes a
flash point with conservatives on the Board of Education."
The current crop of textbooks were written to comply with a set of standards that the Texas State Board of Education, then controlled by a group of ultra-conservatives,
crafted in 2010 with input from a cadre of hand-picked "experts." Among
them were conservative culture warriors such as David Barton, a
self-styled historian with deep ties to the Republican Party who argues
that the principle of church-state separation is a myth. As a result,
the books are required to glorify free-market capitalism, promote
America's Christian heritage, and pay tribute to conservative icons,
such as Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly.
Comments from Tuesday's hearing will be forwarded
to publishers, who are allowed to make changes but tend to be wary of
doing anything that will put them at odds with the board. The final vote
on which books to adopt will be held November. Under a new Texas law,
board members can only vote to reject books that have blatant factual
errors or fail to meet at least half of the state's requirements,
meaning it may be too late to address some of the concerns raised by
Texas citizens. As Republican board member Thomas Ratliff put it last week, "If there's a complaint about the standards, that ship has sailed."
Ratliff struck a more diplomatic note during
Tuesday's meeting. "This process is not going to be perfect," he said.
"These books are not going to be perfect from anybody's perspective, and
so what we got to do is remember these are put in the hands of
hopefully trained professionals that will teach these subjects in a fair
balanced and comprehensive way to get these kids ready to think for
themselves."
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