Gary Scharrer: Does State Board Need a History Test?
[Gary Scharrer is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.]
This is what can happen when you ignore experts, don't fully know your history, and are responsible for approving textbooks for Texas schoolchildren, according to critics worried about the State Board of Education:
You might delete someone recognized by Ladies' Home Journal as one of the 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century — citing her membership in a socialist organization.
You could ban a popular children's author from textbooks because his name is the same as a professor who wrote favorably about Marxism.
You might even vote to teach youngsters that U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's 1950s crusade to smear suspected Communists was vindicated by later research on Soviet spying.
The State Board of Education will meet again this week before taking final action in May on new social studies curriculum standards that will influence history and government textbooks for 4.7 million public school students....
Geraldine “Tincy” Miller, R-Dallas, encouraged colleagues to yank Huerta because “she was a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party” and, therefore, did not “exemplify good citizenship” like Helen Keller....
The board tentatively decided to add W.E.B. DuBois, who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to the reading list for elementary school students.
“I was just stunned that I never knew who this man was. He is a true, great American,” board member Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, told his colleagues....
Pat Hardy, R-Fort Worth, encouraged the board to pull Bill Martin Jr. out of the standards.
The board apparently confused the author of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?” with a different Bill Martin who wrote about “Ethical Marxism.”
It's a process that relies only sporadically on expertise, said Keith Erekson, director of the University of Texas at El Paso Center for History Teaching & Learning.
“Experienced review committees, invited experts and the public provide their feedback early in the process before the State Board of Education closes the door in order to do what they want to do,” Erekson said. “That would be like hiring top-rate engineers to design a car only to rush it off the assembly line without inspecting the final accelerator pedal.”
Read entire article at San Antonio Express-News
This is what can happen when you ignore experts, don't fully know your history, and are responsible for approving textbooks for Texas schoolchildren, according to critics worried about the State Board of Education:
You might delete someone recognized by Ladies' Home Journal as one of the 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century — citing her membership in a socialist organization.
You could ban a popular children's author from textbooks because his name is the same as a professor who wrote favorably about Marxism.
You might even vote to teach youngsters that U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's 1950s crusade to smear suspected Communists was vindicated by later research on Soviet spying.
The State Board of Education will meet again this week before taking final action in May on new social studies curriculum standards that will influence history and government textbooks for 4.7 million public school students....
Geraldine “Tincy” Miller, R-Dallas, encouraged colleagues to yank Huerta because “she was a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America Party” and, therefore, did not “exemplify good citizenship” like Helen Keller....
The board tentatively decided to add W.E.B. DuBois, who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to the reading list for elementary school students.
“I was just stunned that I never knew who this man was. He is a true, great American,” board member Don McLeroy, R-Bryan, told his colleagues....
Pat Hardy, R-Fort Worth, encouraged the board to pull Bill Martin Jr. out of the standards.
The board apparently confused the author of “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?” with a different Bill Martin who wrote about “Ethical Marxism.”
It's a process that relies only sporadically on expertise, said Keith Erekson, director of the University of Texas at El Paso Center for History Teaching & Learning.
“Experienced review committees, invited experts and the public provide their feedback early in the process before the State Board of Education closes the door in order to do what they want to do,” Erekson said. “That would be like hiring top-rate engineers to design a car only to rush it off the assembly line without inspecting the final accelerator pedal.”