Making War Over History

Friday, April 23, 2010

by Suzanne Fields

Texas is big. Everybody knows that. Texans, who boast about their diversity and productivity, are usually big, too. Texas produces more beef and cotton than any other state. Texas has a lot of snakes and flowers, and producers of nearly everything everywhere are determined to make a market in Texas.

When the product bears on what children in the other 49 states learn at school, what Texas produces becomes our business. Textbook publishers long ago learned that publishing textbooks for Texas was an opportunity to hit a gusher, like Jett Rink's gusher of oil in the movie "Giant." With more than 4.7 million students and a school board that adopts textbooks for the whole state, Texas attracts publishers from all over to make pilgrimages to Texas to get drafts of their books approved according to Texas standards. It follows that this one-size-fits-all cuts the cost of textbooks for schools in the rest of the nation.

This year, the Texas Board of Education landed itself in the middle of the culture wars when it rewrote the social studies curriculum, inviting a debate that mirrors the values conflict between traditionalists and multiculturalists. With partisans on the right and on the left, it's the 21st century's "battle of the books." The argument is tilted a bit to the right, with 10 Republicans and five Democrats deciding on changes in the books.

"We are adding balance," Dr. Don McLeroy, the conservative leader on the board, told The New York Times. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left. "

Counters Mary Beth Berlanga, a longtime Texas board member and Hispanic activist, "They are rewriting history." She complains that conservatives ignore Hispanics and want to portray a white America. She and her liberal friends accuse the board of "racist ideology" and spreading "capitalism propaganda."

Calmer observers suggest the changes are a necessary correction of liberal bias. Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the New York-based American Textbook Council, an independent research organization that reviews history and social studies textbooks used in the nation's schools, argues that "for two decades, multiculturalists have tried to supplant the older view of Americans as religious dissenters, pioneers and immigrants intent on making a freer and better life, a force for good in the world, a nation that regulated reform and advanced civil rights to all."

He describes American parents as shocked and dismayed to discover their children are reading history as "a setting for power struggles between groups, or as an unjust and patriarchal society whose rapacity -- from Jamestown to Vietnam -- needs exposure and explication." Columbus isn't a discoverer and explorer, he's an invader and exploiter. Harriet Tubman is a saint. Thomas Jefferson is a sinner.

Although the more than 100 changes recently adopted by the selection board tilt rightward, they are mostly only mildly corrective. The American experience of moving westward is to be described as "expansionism," not "imperialism." The "free enterprise system" replaces the negative connotations that have come to adhere to the word "capitalism" (as in "capitalist pig"). The goals of the Great Society will be broadened to include discussions of its "unintended consequences."

Students will actually learn about "the conservative resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s," including the way Phyllis Schlafly led the successful fight against the Equal Rights Amendment and Newt Gingrich succeeded with the Contract With America and the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994.

These textbook controversies may soon become moot, as more schools rely on electronic books. Students would do a lot better to read different works of actual historians than the rehashed, reinterpreted history often written by hacks. Herodotus and Thucydides such hacks are not.

History, as the cliche goes, is always written by the victors, but a strange thing has happened to American education since the 1960s. Our triumphs have been trivialized and twisted, demonizing America with no celebration of what America stands for in the hearts and minds of the millions across the world.

Instead of emphasizing the abolition of slavery, the educationists encourage our children to wallow in the horrors of that "moral, social and political evil" before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves, along with an enormous expenditure of blood in the Civil War. Instead of focusing on the courage of our ancestors, educationists obsess on what went wrong. They indulge the mindset that sneers at the tea parties as "rabble and racist," ignoring the growing aspiration to return to the smaller government as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

Lord Byron scoffed that history was the "devil's Scripture." Arnold Toynbee defined history as "a vision of God's creation on the move." The textbook wars will continue, because they're too big even for Texas.

Suzanne Fields is a columnist with The Washington Times.

Florida's Civics Bill Makes National Headlines

From: ncss-legis-bounces@lists.ncss.org [mailto:ncss-legis-bounces@lists.ncss.org] On Behalf Of Kristen Pekarek
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 3:49 PM
To: ncss-legis legis; NCSS Affiliates
Subject: [Ncss-legis] Bill would require civics in Florida Schools


Dear Leaders,

I wanted to pass along some good news that was just sent from Florida concerning a Bill that would require civics in Florida Schools. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments at legis@ncss.org


The Associated Press
Published: April 21, 2010

A bill requiring middle school students to take a civics class and pass an end-of-course test is on its way to Gov. Charlie Crist.

The Senate voted unanimously for the (HB 105) today. It previously passed in the House.

Students would have to pass the final exam to go on to high school.

Lawmakers said the requirement is needed because many citizens don't know the difference between a state legislator and member of Congress or even who is president.

The bill is called the Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Civics Education Act after the retired U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham and ex-U.S. Rep. Lou Frey joined forces four years ago to push for such a requirement.

http://flhouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=42220

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/21/bill-would-require-civics-florida-schools/


Thanks,

Kristen
--
Kristen Pekarek
Program Assistant, External Relations
& Council Communications

National Council for the Social Studies
8555 Sixteenth St., Suite 500
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-588-1800 ext. 107
(fax) 301-588-2049
www.socialstudies.org

Colleges Get Failing Grades In Civics

by Dr. Richard Brake

(April 8) -- On this day 97 years ago, the 17th Amendment was ratified, changing the way we elect senators. Not that many college students would know anything about it, either when they get to college or when they graduate.

For the past five years, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has tried to measure how well colleges and universities do in giving their students a basic understanding of America's core history, key texts, and enduring political and economic institutions.

The results aren't pretty.

Half of the 14,000 incoming freshmen tested failed the 60-question multiple-choice test, getting just half the questions right. Worse, they barely know any more when they graduate, with seniors scoring 54 percent correct. No school, not even Harvard or Yale, got above a 69 percent average among seniors. Worse still, in some schools, students did worse coming out than going in.
At right is a sampling of the questions. (You can take a more complete version of the test on our Web site.) Some of the most missed questions by students dealt with such fundamental American concepts as judicial review, George Washington's warning against "foreign entanglements," the Monroe Doctrine, "The Federalist Papers" and basic details of the Revolutionary and Civil wars.

Colleges like to pride themselves on preparing their young citizens to become the future leaders of the Republic, but how can you be an effective leader if you don't know the story of how our nation's past leaders grappled with the perennial challenges of governing a free people?

Here's the list of the top 10 schools that improved their students' knowledge of civics (the figures show the percentage point increase in scores between freshmen and seniors):
Rhodes College (Tenn) +11.6
Colorado State (CO) +10.9
E. Conn. State Univ. + 9.66
Calvin College (MI) + 9.5
Marian College (WI) + 9.44
Murray State U. (KY) + 9.12
Grove City College PA) + 9.0
Concordia U. (Neb) + 9.0
U. of Colorado + 8.9
St. Cloud State U (MN) + 8.59
Source: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

And here are the bottom 10 schools -- which saw their students lose the most ground (the figures show the percentage point decrease in scores between freshmen and seniors):
John Hopkins (MD) -7.3
Cornell (NY) -4.96
Yale (CN) -3.09
Brown (RI) -2.7
Duke (NC) -2.25
St. John's (NY) -1.87
Princeton (NJ) -1.7
Georgetown (D.C.) -1.2
University of VA -1.1
Rutgers (NJ) -0.93
Source: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

So, what should we make of this?

First, there's clearly room for vast improvement on the part of all colleges and universities when it comes to effectively teaching America's history and institutions. No school did terribly well.

Second, prestige doesn't necessarily guarantee quality and excellence. In fact, most of the schools on the losing side were in the elite category. And while schools like Johns Hopkins do a better job attracting smarter students, when it comes to actually doing the job that colleges are paid to do -- promoting learning -- little schools like Rhodes College and Murray State leave them in the dust. Clearly, exorbitant tuitions don't guarantee a curricula that ensures that students learn the basics about American history and government.

Finally, parents and taxpayers who pay the bills of American higher education need to start holding colleges accountable for the actual outputs of their academic programming and, if necessary, start demanding more transparency in terms of what is taught on their campuses.

From: http://www.aolnews.com/opinion/article/opinion-colleges-get-failing-grades-on-civics/19430737

Dr. Richard Brake is co-chair of Intercollegiate Studies Institute's National Civic Literacy Board. For more details regarding ISI's past and current civic literacy studies, and to take the test online, please go to www.americancivicliteracy.org.

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