Texas School Board Set to Vote Textbook Revisions

In this article, written in the New York Times on May 20, the Texas Board of Education was expected to vote on Thursday night to teach kids in schools an altered version of American history that put an emphasis on "the roles of capitalist enterprise, the military, Christianity and modern Republican political figures". The voted was expected to go directly along the lines of the parties. There are 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats on the board of education. Before the vote was taken, there were inumerous public comments, a hearing in which 200 speakers addressed the board and a large protest rally. In recent years editors of textbooks have begun to alter versions of their textbooks to individual states, and due to the size of Texas, they have had an impact of the editors. Once every ten years, the board members alter the guidelines for the creation of textbooks. Last year, the conservative members of the board altered the curriculum for science. This year they are looking to change the history books and the language used in them to advance conservative principles. The changes were greatly analyzed and debated and in the end Mr. Jealous, president of the N.A.A.C.P, stated that, “the school board members are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts”.

While the school board is entitled to make changes to the guidelines for textbooks, we do not believe that they should be allowed to insert their beliefs to influence the beliefs of school children. History should be taught neutrally and there should not be any aspect of history that is left out of our textbooks. History should be taught the way that it happened, opinions should be minimal and facts should be the majority.

L.Ambrose and S.Hatcher