Saturday, Mar 26, 2005 by Klaus

U.S.: Ignorance-Only Textbooks Promoted to Meet Conservative Values

When publisher Holt, Rinehart Winston proposed a textbook that used line drawings to show girls how to conduct a self-examination for breast cancer, conservatives on the Texas Board of Education were enraged. Even more damning, the book’s policy of abstinence-first was met with wide disapproval. Meanwhile, Glencoe McGraw-Hill’s own textbook, which contained no information about contraception or safer-sex options, was approved almost unanimously. David Irons, regional vice president of McGraw-Hill’s Glencoe division in 1995, said their texts, “[do] not promote a Pro-Homosexual lifestyle or an Anti-Family agenda.” Glencoe’s publisher/activist synergy proved so successful that year that it earned Irons a promotion. (He is now senior vice president of sales at Holt, Rinehart and Winston.)

Why should this unfortunate state of events matter to fancy blue state folk? The crux of the issue–so to speak–is that if these conservative school districts should boycott a textbook due to its having too much information, the publishing company will lose money regardless of whether it had won statewide adoption. Since textbook companies generally publish only one national edition, and Texas’ community of religious conservatives have the power make or break textbook adoption, thus is the fate of a given textbook nationwide determined by the religious right in Texas.

Here’s the rundown: As the Texas Board of Education mulls over the latest textbooks each Fall, publishers compete to win the influential $400 million market. If the 15 elected board members vote that a book conforms to Texas state law, the state may pay for local school districts to use the textbook. Otherwise the books are rejected. Texas uses a statewide textbook adoption process, thereby wielding the power to rewrite textbooks to meet their priorities. William Bennetta, president of the The Textbook League, says, “The books that kids in Albany, [New York], read have been diddled to conform to the tastes of people in Texas.”

Metroland Online reports that health-education teachers who purchase new textbooks will have their choice of three nationally distributed textbooks, each of which adheres to the “abstinence-only” curriculum.

There are four national textbook companies, and only three publish health-education textbooks. All three wrote new editions for Texas adoption in 2004, and all three textbooks are fervently abstinence-only.

But wait, there’s more! Texas’ conservative influence has broadened to dilute the content of other subjects as well:

In Our World Today: People, Places and Issues (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill), a passage noting that “glaciers formed the Great Lakes millions of years ago” was altered to read “in the distant past” after a conservative reviewer attacked the phrase as merely “the opinion of some scientist who support [sic] the theory of evolution.”

A passage in World Explorer: People, Places and Cultures (Prentice Hall) noting that the Quran teaches “the importance of honesty, honor, giving to others and having love and respect for… families” was deleted after a conservative reviewer branded it “more propaganda” for Islam.

Prentice Hall dropped an entire section on global warming from World Explorer after a reviewer charged that it would “prepare students to look to the government for solutions to problems.”

Learn more about Texas’s textbook adoption system at the following sites: Texas Freedom Network, Texans For Science.

(via Boing Boing)

categories: jesusistan, the ignoranti


Leave a Comment

(required)

(required, will not be displayed)


Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree


Related Posts


  • Twitter Feed »

  • Archives

  • Categories