Texas’ State Board of Education recently approved new textbooks after rejecting six options and witnessing a top publisher withdraw a seventh. The approval came after months of protest against history lessons that some academicians believe overplay the influence of Moses in America’s founding and downplay the image of Muslims. On November 21, the board approved a total of 89 textbooks and software packages that would be used by over five million students across various public schools, starting next fall.
The textbooks were approved of after hours of sometimes testy discussions and it left publishers scurrying to make hundreds of last-minute changes. A proposal was also made to have the vote delayed so both the board and the public could better assess the suggested changes, but that vote was defeated as well.
“I’m comfortable enough that these books have been reviewed by many, many people,” said Thomas Ratliff, a Republican and the board’s vice chairman. “They are not perfect. They never will be.”
The social studies, history and government textbooks were submitted for approval earlier this year after academicians on the left and the right criticized some of its contents. While some said the books sympathized with Islamists or downplayed the contributions of President Ronald Reagan, others said the books overplayed the importance of Moses to America’s founding fathers or propagated the free-market system.
Heated debates over what is taught in public schools in Texas have attracted enormous media attention for years. The new textbooks abide by the state academic curriculum that was adopted in 2010, when Republican members of the board approved standards revolving around Conservative-championed topics such as Moses and his influence on America’s existing legal system. They said, at the time, such additions would balance what they felt were liberal biases propagated in classrooms.
The 10-to-5 vote on Friday, where all Republicans on the board voted in favour of the books and Democrats voted against them, was one of its kind since 2002. These books will be used for at least 10 years.
Mavis Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, said she would not support textbooks abiding by the 2010 academic standards.
“I think it’s a disservice to the students when we have a particular bent in which we present things to them,” said Knight, who is retiring and attended her last board meeting on Friday.
Texas is a large state and textbooks written for its public schools can easily influence the kind of classroom study materials sold elsewhere around the United States. To add to that, a 2011 state law allows school districts to purchase books both on and off the board list. In addition, the advancement of technology and onset of electronic lessons has made it even easier for publishers to design different study content for different states.
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