Texas textbooks suffer from political wrangling by the state’s school board, which has little else to do with the texts but wrangle over what is in them and why. News suggests the board, recently fortified with primary election wins by extremely conservative, anti-public school forces, now will try to use the texts to change curricula statewide.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the Texas State Board of Education (Texas SBOE) will go after English literature in the next round of text approvals: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/metropolitan/4024620 Reporter Jane Elliott wrote:
“Many on the board want to replace a student-centered curriculum that calls on students to use their own attitudes and ethics to interpret texts with teacher-centered instruction that emphasizes the basics of spelling, grammar and punctuation.
“It was a fight social conservatives on the board lost in 1997, when moderates and liberals adopted the curriculum for all subjects. Now, with social conservatives expected to have a majority on the board for the first time after the November elections, the plan to rewrite the English standards is viewed by some as the opening shot in an effort to put a conservative imprint on the state’s curriculum.”
English does not lend itself much to political manipulation, generally. There is a set of classic literature that Texas teachers use, basically the same set teachers in other states use. It is possible that this change in process could help English instruction. Past experience suggests this is a stalking horse issue for the board to develop voting blocs and strategies to go after the content of U.S. history courses and biology courses later. Inherent dangers in these battles include the watering down of texts to the point that they are dishwater — deadly dull for students, and deadly to the teaching of the subjects.
Dr. Diane Ravitch, now of New York University, formerly the Assistant Secretary of Education for Research in the administration of George H. W. Bush, argues that both left and right share blame for bad textbooks as a result of these fights, in her book, The Language Police. I am most familiar with the Holt Rinehart Winston (HRW) series, The American Nation, from using it for three years (we were using an earlier edition of the book shown in the link).
The books must mention a broad range of specific topics and people. All of the approved history books suffer from a resulting dullness in their addressing the topics which makes history a real foot-slogging exercise for most Texas high school students. HRW offers significant additional products to help teachers — I made heavy use of the CD-ROM accompanying the text and especially its software to help generate tests. I found it necessary to use chunks from my extensive video library to supplement, and in critical areas for the Texas exit exam for seniors, the book did not inspire students to learn the material — for Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the Japanese internment during World War II, Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, Vietnam and the Cold War, for example. These specific areas do not stand out in the book, not as I wish they would, and not in a way that the average kid would understand the issues.
History should sing. The study of history should inspire students, as patriots, as citizens, as parents and as humans interested in real drama. Dull books put the burden on teachers to make the history sing, and too few teachers are up to the task, especially in a world dominated by state-mandated teaching to a test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS). I have a dream. I have high hopes that the Texas SBOE will make great new standards for English, standards that will lend themselves to helping teachers make the subject sing for the students so they will happily and well learn the topic.
I have a dream that this process will lead to a similar renaissance in U.S. history, and in biology, and in other topics. But I am dulled with the understanding of past history from the Texas SBOE.
Because Texas is a huge market for publishers, they will skew their books as Texas asks, often. You have a stake in the Texas curriculum regardless where you live. Watch that space!
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
it’s just a matter of time before textbooks become “obsolete”
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edarrell:
I teach a university course in Utah. Students, under distribution requirements have to take at least one course from the social studies group [including history, polisci, sociology]. The one term history option is entitled “American Institutions” and it is taught in every U and CC in the state, so far as I know, as a history course for history credit.
Since, clearly, “covering” all of American History in one term is not possible, not even superficially, different professors structure the course in different ways that nevertheless fit the catalog description. My own way has been to choose among all possible topics to deal with those that [I think] are most important in order for students to understand modern American politics and society. And the selection can change now and then in response to headlines. [E.g. given the increased significance of religion in modern American politics and society, I do more with religion and the founders, and religion in 19th century politics than I used to, and a lot less on westward movement, frontier than I used to].
The rationale for the course is that, given the current national trend [which has come to Utah] not to teach post-Reconstruction history in High School [supposedly pre-1877 is “covered” in middle school, so there is “no need to repeat it in 11th grade” as a state ed. official in Louisiana told me some years ago when La. decided to eliminate pre-1877 from its history standardized tests for high schoolers]that it’s better to have students get some college American History, however truncated, than none. And of course crowded requirements for many programs, the argument goes, leave little time for electives, and certainly not 6 hours [a full year US history survey]”just for history.”
Please note: I am not endorsing that rationale, just reporting it.
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U.S. history in a semester? I think generally we deliver the stuff too slowly. I think kids can soak it up much faster than most schools are geared to deliver it.
R. Becker, what results do you get from a one-semester course? College or high school? Why just one semester?
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“History should sing.” Absolutely. Which is why it’s properly considered one of the humanities, rather than one of the social sciences — whatever they may be.
Currently teaching a one semester course on US History from the start to last week. Yes, in one semester. [That’s ok. Historians do the impossible as a matter of routine.] Current syllabus ends as follows: Now, with all that grim stuff about exams and grades and papers out of the way…. American History is filled with stories of triumph and defeat, of inspiring courage and of mind-numbing brutality, of people — great and lowly, heroes and villains, statesmen and scoundrels — whose tales are sometimes inspiring, occasionally appalling and always [ok, ok, not always, but very often] interesting. We are going to take a trip through that history, at flank speed, from Columbus to modern America. Enjoy the ride. It can be fun. Really.
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