textbooks cover the same radical history, from the brutality of slavery to the fight for civil rights. the self-evident truths from the founding documents to the waves of immigration that reshaped the nation.
the books have the same publisher. credit the same authors. But they’re tailored to students in different states, and their content sometimes differs in ways that reflect the nation’s deepest partisan divides.
You are reading: Texas changes history books
Hundreds of differences, some subtle, some extensive, emerged in a New York Times analysis of eight American history textbooks in common use in California and Texas, two of the nation’s largest markets.
in a country that cannot reach a consensus on fundamental questions (how restricted capitalism should be, whether immigrants are a burden or a blessing, to what extent the legacy of slavery continues to shape American life) , textbook publishers are caught in the middle. On these questions and others, the class materials are not only colored by politics, they are also helping to shape a generation of future voters.
Conservatives have fought for schools to promote patriotism, highlight the influence of Christianity, and celebrate the founding fathers. In a September speech, President Trump warned against a “radical left” that wants to “erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate our students with leftist ideology.”
The left has pushed for students to confront history more from the bottom than from the top down, focusing on the experiences of marginalized groups such as slaves, women, and Native Americans.
The books in the times analyzed were published in 2016 or later and have been widely adopted by eighth and eleventh graders, although the publishers declined to share sales figures. each text has editions for texas and california, among other states, customized to meet legislators with different priorities.
“at the end of the day, it is a political process”, said jesús f. de la teja, emeritus professor of history at texas state university who has worked for the state of texas and for publishers revising standards and textbooks.
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The differences between the state editions can be traced back to several sources: state social studies standards; state laws; and comments from panels of appointees who meet, in conference rooms at the sacramento and austin hotels, to review drafts.
Textbook review panel requests, sent in painstaking detail to editors, show the sometimes granular ways in which ideology can influence the writing of history.
a california panel asked publisher mcgraw-hill to avoid using the word “massacre” when describing 19th century native american attacks on whites. A Texas panel asked Pearson to note the number of clergymen who signed the Declaration of Independence and to claim that the nation’s founders were inspired by the Great Protestant Awakening.
all members of the california panel were educators selected by the state board of education, whose members were appointed by the former governor. jerry brown, a democrat. The Texas panel, appointed by the Republican-dominated state board of education, was made up of educators, parents, business representatives, and a Christian pastor and politician.
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mcgraw-hill, the publisher whose annotated bill of rights appears differently in the two states, said it had created additional wording on the second amendment and gun control for the california textbook. A national version of the pages is similar to the Texas edition, which does not draw attention to gun rights, the company said in a written statement.
Pearson, the publisher whose Texas textbook raises questions about the quality of Harlem Renaissance literature, said such language “adds more depth and nuance.”
critical language about non-white cultural movements also appears in a texas book by mcgraw-hill. It’s partly the result of debates in 2010 between conservative and liberal members of the Texas Board of Education over whether state standards should mention cultural movements like hip-hop and country music. his commitment was to ask teachers and textbook publishers to address “both the positive and negative impacts” of art movements.
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texas met that requirement in 2018, but its most recent textbooks, published in 2016, will reflect it for years to come.
Publishers are eager to please state legislators on both sides, during a tough time for business. schools are transitioning to digital materials. And with the ease of internet searching, many teachers say they prefer to select their own materials from primary sources online.
Still, recent textbooks have come a long way from what was published in decades past. Both the Texas and California volumes more directly address the cruelty of the slave trade, avoiding several myths that were common in textbooks for generations: that some slave owners treated enslaved people with kindness and that African Americans were better off enslaved than free. the books also devote more space to the women’s movement and balance the European immigration narrative with Latino and Asian immigrant stories.
“American history is no longer the history of the great white men,” said albert s. Broussard, professor of history at Texas A&M University and author of the Texas and California editions of the McGraw-Hill textbooks.
this is how the politics of american history unfolds in california and texas textbooks, on topics such as race, immigration, gender, sexuality, and economics.
California and Texas textbooks sometimes offer differing explanations for white backlash to black advancement after the Civil War, from Reconstruction to 20th-century housing discrimination.
southern whites resisted reconstruction, according to a mcgraw-hill textbook, because they “didn’t want african americans to have more rights.” But the Texas edition offers an additional reason: Reforms cost money, and that means higher taxes.
Full paragraphs about writing restrictions and red lines only appear in California editions of textbooks, in part as a result of differing state regulations. the texas social studies guidelines do not mention housing discrimination at all.
however, kerry green, a high school social studies teacher in sunnyvale, texas, a small town east of dallas, said she discussed the red line with her 11th graders and added it as a counterpoint to the lessons on Postwar Prosperity: The Optimistic Story of Consumerism, Television, and the Baby Boom Emphasizing Your State’s Standards.
mrs. Green said he preferred to assign primary sources that “encourage students to explore history on their own.” but she said she would appreciate textbooks that contain more historical documents and a greater diversity of voices and topics from the past.
“textbook companies are not gearing their textbooks toward teachers; they are gearing their textbooks toward the states,” he said.
in texas textbooks, mentions of l.g.b.t.q. Topics tend to be restricted to coverage of events in recent decades, such as the Stonewall uprising, the AIDS crisis, and marriage rights debates.
But for recent California editions, editors wrote thousands of words of new text in response to the Fair Education Act, a law signed by Governor Brown in 2011. It requires schools to teach the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and disabled Americans.
Throughout the California books there are passages on topics such as same-sex families under slavery and early sex reassignment surgery in the 1950s, text that does not appear in the Texas versions.
Stephanie Kugler, an eighth-grade history teacher in West Sacramento, California, said she had expanded on an idea mentioned briefly in her class textbook about women dressing as men to fight in the civil war and they continued to live as men. , in a whole lesson about troops that today would be considered transgender. students read accounts of the lives of those soldiers along with more traditional sources, such as letters written by a black union soldier and a confederate soldier.
your target, mrs. kugler, was to “make it really authentic” to talk about diversity in the context of each historical period.
while both states devote many pages to the women’s movement, texas books generally avoid discussions of sex or sexuality.
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Michael Teague, a border patrol agent, appears in the texas edition of mcgraw-hill’s 11th grade textbook. he talks about his concerns about drug trafficking and says: “if you open the border wide, you are going to invite political and social unrest”.
mr. Teague’s story appears at the end of a chapter on recent immigration, along with accounts from a Vietnamese immigrant and a second-generation Mexican-American.
that section in the california edition of the same book is dedicated to a long excerpt from the novel “how the garcía girls lost their accent”, by julia alvarez. deals with intergenerational tensions in a Dominican-American family.
in a written statement, mcgraw-hill said the full-page border patrol narrative was not included in the california edition because it did not fit alongside the literary excerpt. And when the Texas edition came out six years ago, state standards required students to analyze both “legal and illegal immigration to the United States.”
By contrast, California textbooks are more likely to indicate when a historical figure was an immigrant. and include more detail about the role immigrants such as Japanese and Filipino farmworkers played in labor movements.
California is one of many states that in recent years have asked teachers and textbooks to cover the contributions of specific immigrant groups, including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, European Americans, and the Mexican-Americans.
These additions are part of the reason California books are almost always longer than their Texas counterparts.
The California Board of Education adopted a comprehensive 842-page social studies framework in 2016. Two years later, the Texas School Board simplified its social studies standards, which are now presented in a highly compressed 78 pages.
Critics of the California approach say making state standards and textbooks longer and more inclusive can be overwhelming for teachers trying to fast-forward through hundreds of years of material.
texas lawmakers are convinced to give students a positive view of the US economy; Since 1995, state law has required high school economics courses to offer an “emphasis on the free enterprise system and its benefits.” that emphasis seems to have crept into the history curriculum as well.
california curriculum materials, by contrast, sometimes read like a summary of a bernie sanders rally. “The huge gap between the haves and have-nots and what should be done about it is one of the big questions right now,” says the state’s 2016 social studies framework.
As a result, California textbooks are more likely to celebrate unionism, criticize the concentration of wealth, and focus on how industry pollutes the environment.
In both the california and texas pearson state 11th grade textbooks, “the primary argument against environmental legislation is that it harms the nation’s economy and industries.”
the texas edition goes further and highlights the criticism of federal efforts to subsidize the green energy industry: “Republicans accuse the government of wasting taxpayer money, for example, by supporting the failed energy manufacturer solar solyndra”. The Solyndra controversy was a obsession with conservatives in 2011, when the company went bankrupt after accepting $500 million in federally guaranteed loans.
the texas book also states that us action on global warming may not make a difference if china, india, russia and brazil do not act as well.
the california edition does not mention solyndra or the other nations. however, it does include a section on the threat posed to US states and cities by rising sea levels, noting that the impact on tourism in Florida could damage the Florida economy and that transportation networks and buildings could be threatened.
Pearson said in a written statement that the differences between the books could be attributed primarily to the fact that the California book was published several years later, and that concerns about coastal flooding have “become more heightened in recent years.” .
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