Here’s an article in the Wall Street Journal this week with the headline “Education Board in Texas Faces Curbs.” Approving last month a science curriculum that allows for creationist objections to evolution in science class and textbooks, the board has, according to some lawmakers in the state, stepped over the line separating ideology from scientific study. One proposal in the Texas legislature would take away the Board’s role in certifying curricula and in reviewing and evaluating textbooks. Another would remove a “vast pot of school funding” from its control.
The governor hasn’t taken a position on the proposals yet, but people shouldn’t consider this just a state-level matter. What Texas decides about textbooks reverberates across the country. Along with California (which a few years ago garnered 11 percent of the national textbook market), it sets the terms for textbook publishers, and so the rest of the nation ends up with curricular materials that meet those two states’ demands.
A few years ago, Diane Ravitch published an expose of textbook adoption procedures entitled “The Language Police” (it is listed here at Ravitch’s site). One thing she found was that censorship was alive and well on both sides of the ideological spectrum, with California focusing on identity-based censorship (that is, you must give positive and adequate representation to all racial and ethnic groups) and Texas focusing on religious and sexual censorship.
At one point she provides examples of how publishers altered language in their books before submitting them to Texas reviewers. Here are a few:
“A headline in a literature textbook originally read: ‘Chatting with the Devil, Dining with Prophets: Seer, bard and oddball, artist-poet William Blake poured his passions into uniquely visionary images.’ This was revised by editors as follows: ‘Chatting with Angels, Dining with Prophets: Artist-poet William Blake poured his passions into uniquely visionary images.’”
“A headline in a twelfth-grade history textbook read: ‘Death Stallks a Continent: In the dry timber of African societies, AIDS was a spark. The conflagration it set off continues to kill millions.’ The editor deleted it with the comment: ‘Too full of inappropriate issues; too negative, we don’t want to portray Africa as AIDS-ridden.’”
“An article written for a 12th-grade textbook had this headline: ‘To Be Young and Gay in Wyoming: Despite its dangers, Matthew Shepard loved his home state. Now he is part of its legacy.’ The editor wrote: “Even though the article focuses on tolerance and acceptance, Shepard’s homosexuality can’t be mentioned. Can you redo the article so that Shepard’s sexuality is ignored.’”
“In a science textbook, editors rejected this statement: ‘A scientific panel says fossil fuels are the main culprit in the Earth’s heating up.’ The comment: ‘We’d never be adopted in Texas.’”
