A Closer Look at Textbooks Needs A Closer Look

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In a New American article, Raven Clabough says,

"In light of the recent controversy surrounding the Texas Board of Education, and what may be an improvement on the information taught to America’s youth, I suddenly became curious about the “facts” found in the textbooks in my own state of residence: Florida."  

And he doesn't like what he found. While I think some points maybe valid most are simply Discovery Institute talking points.

One of my favorite comments was from Soulf2:

Discovery Institute reference fail
Wow, referencing the Discovery Institute without even looking into why they are not taken seriously is a major fail point for Raven Clabough. Anytime you want to know why the alt to evolution is not presented, just look it up on the talkorigins web site. talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
Every creationist claim is quoted, sourced, and cited.

As for the general history books... WTF? Are you serious? No single book is going to go into extensive details unless that is it's focus topic. If it did, student text books would be MUCH longer and impossible to cover over such a short time span. Also, opinion pieces should not be inserted into history books, save that for philosophy. However, we are lucky that most students are then able later to take topic oriented classes later (after the base history has been established).

And now for the actual article. Bold added by me for emphasis.

A Closer Look at Textbooks
Written by Raven Clabough  - Friday, 28 May 2010

In the debate over textbook content, the two major points of contention always seem to be the teaching of evolution, and American history overall. Students are schooled to believe that evolution is a fact, not a theory, and that America is a democracy, when it is in fact a Constitutional Republic, and that the Constitution is a living document that evolves over time.

Perhaps most disturbing is the absolute rewriting of history and blatant falsities that are being presented to the influential young minds in some textbooks, including concepts like “FDR saved America from depression” and “Woodrow Wilson was a progressive hero.” 

In light of the recent controversy surrounding the Texas Board of Education, and what may be an improvement on the information taught to America’s youth, I suddenly became curious about the “facts” found in the textbooks in my own state of residence: Florida.  

On evolution, Florida’s Holt Science and Technology textbook for eighth graders indicates: “Scientists observe that species have changed over time. They also observe that the inherited characteristics in populations change over time. Scientists think that as populations change over time, new species form. Thus, newer species descend from older species. The process in which populations gradually change over time is called evolution.” When discussing the evidence for evolution, the textbook refers to fossils and fossil records, case studies of whales, and DNA. Of course, there is an entire section dedicated to the greatness that was Charles Darwin, and much of the speculative language disappears. However, the textbook does refer to Darwin’s hypothesis on natural selection as a theory. 

The problem with the Holt Science textbook, however, is that even though it was copyrighted as recently as 2006, there is no mention of the alternative discoveries that dispute the theory of evolution. In 2001, the Discovery Institute launched a list of hundreds of scientists who dissent from Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. According to the Institute, “During recent decades, new scientific evidence from many scientific disciplines such as cosmology, physics, biology, “artificial intelligence” research, and others have caused scientists to begin questioning Darwinism’s central tenet of natural selection and studying the evidence supporting it in greater detail.” The letter of dissent states, “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” 

Of the reasons for the dissent, the Center for Science and Culture indicated that Darwin’s theory of “microevolution,” changes within existing species, is uncontroversial and supported by a plethora of evidence, but that his theory of “macroevolution,” large-scale changes over geological time, was “controversial right from the start.” The Center states, “In the first few decades of the twentieth century, skepticism over this aspect of evolution was so strong that Darwin’s theory went into eclipse.” Dissenting scientists argue that the genetic mutations necessary to account for the theory of “macroevolution” would produce mostly harmful effects, not positive effects like the development of the human eye. 

Now, I do not pretend to thoroughly comprehend evolutionary theory, but one thing seems certain. Evidence uncovered after Darwin’s death has created a divide between scientists who do and do not subscribe to the theory of macroevolution, and that it is certainly worth mentioning in the Science textbooks. According to the Center for Science and Culture, “Since the controversy over microevolution and macroevolution is at the heart of Darwin’s theory, and since evolutionary theory is so influential in modern biology, it is a disservice to students for biology curricula to ignore the controversy entirely … it is inaccurate to give students the impression that the controversy has been resolved and that all scientists have reached a consensus on the issue”. 

It seems fair to say, unfortunately, that political correctness plays too much of a role in the content of school textbooks. In fact, according to a Rasmussen poll, 55 percent of parents believe that to be the case. If a science textbook even suggests that Darwin’s theory of evolution may be false, the writers are charged with supporting creationism. To avoid that clash, they simply leave out contradictory data. 

In the same Rasmussen poll, a mere 31 percent of parents believed history textbooks portray American History accurately.  On Glenn Beck’s May 25 episode, he furiously discussed how history is being rewritten to be politically correct.  He pointed to a Virginia State McDonald Publishing History textbook that discussed the Declaration of Independence and said, “The declaration expanded these ideas that all men are created equal and they are endowed … with certain unalienable rights.” The words “by their Creator” were removed and replaced by ellipses. 

Fortunately, Florida’s McDougal Littell Creating America eight grade textbook does not attempt to remove God’s role from the founding of American independence from British rule.   

Where the textbook falls short, unfortunately, is in the discussion of FDR’s presidency. The book accurately asserts that “the New Deal did not end the Depression” and even states that the New Deal did forever change the U.S. government. However, in the half-page mention of the Japanese internment camps, little focus is given to the overall and blatant injustice of the internment program. The program is summed up as follows:

In the days and weeks after Pearl Harbor, several newspapers declared Japanese Americans to be a security threat.  President Roosevelt eventually responded to the growing anti-Japanese hysteria.  In February 1942, he signed an order that allowed for the removal of Japanese and Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast.  This action came to be known as the Japanese-American internment.  More than 110,000 men, women, and children were rounded up.  They had to sell their homes and possessions and leave their jobs.  These citizens were placed in internment camps, areas where they were kept under guard.  In these camps, families lived in single rooms with little privacy.  About two-thirds of the people interned were Nisei, Japanese Americans born in the United States.

And that’s it. There is no mention of what happened to the Japanese after the war, no real focus of what life was like in these internment camps, and no discussion of how most of these citizens did not have their properties restored to them upon their release. 

Likewise, the textbook does not mention the other prejudiced practices under FDR, including the imposition of restrictions on Italian and Germans living in the United States. According to the German American Internee Coalition, FDR “interned at least 11,000 persons of German ancestry” even though the law stated only “enemy aliens” could be interned. Under FDR, the Department of Justice (DOJ) “instituted very limited due process protections for those arrested.” Also under FDR, “pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, DOJ created a network of prohibited zones and restricted areas.  Enemy aliens were forbidden to enter or remain in certain areas and their movements severely restricted in others.... Pursuant to Presidential Executive Order 9066, the military could restrict the liberties of citizens and aliens, as it deemed necessary.” 

Yet none of that information appears in the McDougal Littell textbook. Nor does the textbook discuss FDR’s creation of the Office of War Information, which virtually regulated all information in print, inhibiting freedom of press and speech. 

The issue with leaving out such pertinent information is that it lulls American students into a false sense of security about their government. To know history is to avoid repeating it. People who accuse governments’ critics of being “conspiracy theorists” are unaware that much of what people say could “never happen in America” already has. 

For these reasons, and many more, it is certainly no wonder the Texas Board of Education felt compelled to investigate the content of the textbooks. It should even prompt other states to take similar actions of scrutinizing textbooks to examine what is being left out or glossed over.  

Note: There are many more articles like this at the New American. While the site does not claim to be a mouthpiece for the religious right, it is quite obvious they are.

• Beck's Founders' Fridays Attempts to Undo Revisionists' Damage
• Texas Board of Education Gets the Facts Right 
• Inside the Texas Textbook Controversy  

Texas Text Book Controversy - Much Ado About Nothing?

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On the Newsweek.com blog section The Gaggle - Press, Politics and Absurdity David A Graham seems to think that the Texas textbook controversy is much ado about nothing. I will agree that the HuffPo has been a shrill alarm but then that is what they do. Graham thinks that while it is petty to replace Thomas Jefferson it is no big deal because his replacements also influenced American revolutions. However, is the object of the Texas SBoE to just introduce other historical figures for examination or to deprecate Thomas Jefferson. I think it is the latter.

I also take issue that this is Texas' business and that other states are not affected by there textbook decisions. While any state can have their own textbooks written not all can afford to write their own, particularly in this economy. Additionally,I have yet to see any mention of other states choosing or even exploring this option. In my last post I wrote about how the Interfaith Alliance has protested Texas' textbook changes to top publishers. Even if their wasn't an issue with other states and Texas' textbooks there is still the matter of their own students and what they will learn. Remember, these kids will become a part of American society and the lessons the are taught will carry with them where ever they go.

Lastly, I will concede his last point whole heartedly.

Why You Shouldn't Worry About Texas's Textbook Changes

David A. Graham - Posted Friday, March 26, 2010 2:14 PM

We're now two weeks into the row over changing Texas history-textbook standards, and the story seems likely to persist at least until a final vote in May on the changes. That means several more weeks of hysteria.

Liberals are outraged. The Huffington Post exemplified the shrill alarm that's being raised: "Ultraconservatives wielded their power over hundreds of subjects this week, introducing and rejecting amendments on everything from the civil rights movement to global politics." You'd think Texas had decided to wipe slavery from the textbooks, paint George Washington as an evangelical Christian, and depict Franklin Roosevelt as a radical Trotskyite. Here are five reasons not to get too exercised about the Lone Star state's shenanigans.

It's not that bad. OK, some of them are pretty offensive: Jefferson Davis's inaugural speech will be studied alongside Abraham Lincoln's, and new textbooks will try to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy. Plus Jon Stewart rightfully skewered a board member's paradoxical assertion that Oscar Romero shouldn't be taught because no one knows about him. But most of them aren't that bad. For example, you may heard that Thomas Jefferson was being eliminated from history books!(!!!) Not quite. The third president—whose deism, authorship of the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom, and coinage of the term "separation of church and state" enrage some conservative Christians—was replaced in a list of thinkers who influenced 18th- and 19th-century revolutions. That's petty, but it's no less true that his replacements—Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin, for example—did, too. Or what about the inclusion of the "conservative resurgence" of the 1980s and 1990s? Well, love ‘em or hate ‘em, Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority, and the Contract with America were significant figures that affected recent American history. Exhibit A: These textbook changes.

It's nothing new. Texas's school board is particularly unhinged now—as excellent pieces in Washington Monthly and The New York Times Magazine have demonstrated—but it's always been a bit of an embarrassment. The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss points out that Texas had a prior textbook fiasco, to the tune of $20 million, in the 1990s, because no one thought to check for the thousands of errors in books. Which brings us to our next point:

It's Texas's business. A major source of handwringing is the worry that the rest of the nation's children will be affected by a few wingnuts in Texas. There was a time when a large state like Texas would sway the nationwide curriculum, because publishers would tailor their books to fit major constituents, then sell them to smaller states. But as the Texas Tribune reports, publishers say that's no longer the case—they're now able to sell different books in different markets. That means parents in Berkeley, Portland, and Madison won't have to worry. Of course, parents in Texas may grow concerned about supbar standards, which is why:

It's likely to cause a strong backlash. Divisive changes tend to earn voters disdain and lose popular support. For example, when the Kansas Board of Education came close to adopting a creationist science curriculum, it caused similar nationwide hysteria. But Kansans didn't think the changes made any more sense than anyone else, and they responded by voting out the intelligent-design bloc and installing a conservative but evolution-friendly board, saving the evolution-only curriculum. The process may already be beginning in Texas. The worst-case scenario is that the changes make it all the way to the end of the 10-year curriculum-review cycle—at which point one can hope they'll be revised back to reason.

Besides, it's not like high-schoolers pay any attention to their textbooks anyway.

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It's Time to Mess with Texas

You would have to be living in a cave to not know what is going on in Texas with text books. Texas is doing its damn best to earn the title of, "Most Fundamental Creationist State". Not only are they white washing their text books by removing such important Americans as Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez, they are also removing the teaching of Enlightenment and Thomas Jefferson from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions.

A few other highlights lowlights:

*There was never such a thing as the separation of church and state.

*"Capitalism" is being replaced by "free-market system" in all books that talk about economics because "free-market system" is warmer and fuzzier because we all know that "capitalism" is great!

*Sen. Joseph McCarthy was right. There were communists in all branches of government so he had a right to bring people before Congress, accuse them of stuff, and cause folks to rat out their neighbors.

*The Japanese Internment wasn't racist because we locked up Germans during World War II as well.

*While the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was the face of the Civil Rights Movement, those violent Black Panthers were there, too. Besides, King and the other African Americans who marched for their rights weren't the main people responsible for the advancements in civil rights. They wouldn't have been able to do anything without the votes of those kind, white Republicans in Congress.

*The students will be taught about the Republican resurgence, the Moral Majority, the Contract With America, and the National Rifle Association.

So what should be done? How do you mess with Texas? There are the traditional methods of letter writing and boycotting both of which are a good start.  But, I think we need to go much further. I think we should ask our respective state's higher education systems to deny credit to students of Texas public schools. California's UC system has already blocked credit for certain courses taken at Christian schools and prevailed in court.

It is time to mess with Texas.

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Christian Textbooks Still Not OK

Chalk up another win for reason. I have seen some of these textbooks and they scare the shit out of me.

Victory again in California creationism case

In a January 12, 2010, ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a federal district court's summary judgment in favor of the University of California system in ACSI et al. v. Stearns et al. The case, originally filed in federal court in Los Angeles on August 25, 2005, centered on the University of California system's policies and statements relevant to evaluating the qualifications of applicants for admission. The plaintiffs — the Association of Christian Schools International, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California, and a handful of students at the school — charged that the university system violated the constitutional rights of applicants from Christian schools whose high school coursework is deemed inadequate preparation for college.
Creationism was not the only issue in the case, to be sure, but it was conspicuous. The plaintiffs objected to the university system's policy of rejecting high school biology courses that use textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books — Biology: God's Living Creation and Biology for Christian Schools — as "inconsistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community." Michael Behe, a proponent of "intelligent design" creationism, defended the textbooks, while Donald Kennedy and Francisco J. Ayala (a Supporter of NCSE) contended that they were inappropriate for use as the principal text in a college preparatory biology course. The trial judge was unpersuaded by Behe's defense.
After the trial judge granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on August 8, 2008, the plaintiffs promptly appealed, asserting, inter alia, that the University of California's policy on high school biology courses "constitutes viewpoint discrimination, content discrimination, and content-based regulation, which conflict with the First Amendment." Of particular interest in the preparation from the appeal was the California Council of Science and Technology's amicus curiae brief. Coauthored by attorneys from Pepper Hamilton LLP who were part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 case over "intelligent design" creationism, the brief argued, "Students educated with these textbooks will not be adequately prepared for science courses."
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court's ruling that the University of California's policy was constitutional on its face and as applied, writing (PDF), "The plaintiffs have not alleged facts showing any risk that UC's policy will lead to the suppression of speech. ... the plaintiffs fail to allege facts showing that this policy is discriminatory in any way. ... The district court correctly determined that UC's rejections of the Calvary [Baptist School] courses [including a biology class that used Biology: God's Living Creation] were reasonable and did not constitute viewpoint discrimination. ... The plaintiffs assert a myriad of legal arguments attacking the district court's decision, all of which lack merit." Documents from the case are available on NCSE's website, in a special section devoted to ACSI v. Stearns.