Every ten years, the Texas State Board of Education reviews content and sets standards for social studies and science textbooks. Because they are the largest textbook market (4.7 million students in 2010) their standards have traditionally had undue influence over the content of textbooks nationwide. On May 21, 2010, the Texas State Board of Education passed a new set of social studies standards in a process that was highly partisan with the Republican majority prevailing over a Democrat minority. National opposition to the Texas Standards, however, has been bi-partisan, with notable Republicans speaking out against them. The revisions, social studies standards in Texasare a reflection of the agenda of theLiberty Legal Institute.They depict the United States as a country that is Christian in origin and fundamental values, in which liberty is equated with capitalism, in which capitalism is referred to as free enterprise, in which slavery and its abolition are removed from the actual human beings who experienced it, and in which confederate politicians are revived as heroes. History, from the perspective of the new standards, has vindicated Joe McCarthy and his House on un-American activities committee, and vilified the Black Panthers, and indeed the black civil rights movement for giving rise to such an organization. The Moral Majority is in, the Great Society is out. Thomas Jefferson is criticized and diminished for championing the division of church and state and not for preaching liberty while owning slaves.
It is not surprising that Joe McCarthy is reconfigured as a patriot. The Texas Board engages in their own red-baiting, removing or vilifying civil rights leaders deemed as socialists or having socialist tendencies, including foundersthe of United Farm Workers, Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta.
As for viewing the United States in a global context, this national history is removed from the global history of imperialism (the United States “expands” while other nations take over).The United Nations is vilified as an entity that endangers U.S. sovereignty.
It is not surprising that Texas education board would be so concerned about how kids in the state view slavery, Native Americans, and the history of U.S. relations with its neighbors. Indeed the birth of Texas provides a great lesson in the history of the slavery of Africans, Native American genocide, 19th century U.S. imperialism, the genesis of capitalism, European immigration history, and the birth of Chicana/o identity. In the 1820s southern plantation owners who sought more land to profit from cotton produced with slave labor, migrated to Native American land in what was then Mexico. When Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, they began their fight to to make Texas a Lone Star State and then a slave owning region of the United States. New immigrants from Germany and especially Ireland (escaping the potato famine) were drafted to fight in the 1846-48 U.S. war with Mexico. Exploring these themes does not create a flattering national story such as, for example the battle of the Alamo. Instead it allows students to explore the many diverse, sometimes conflicting stories that make up the U.S. experience. The one thing that this national debate over Texas standards makes clear is that history is essential to understanding the present and shaping the future.Those of us who teach critical race and ethnicity courses have often heard students say that while racism was a part of 19th century, it is not a relevant topic today. “Slavery was a very long time ago” we hear students say. The people who sit on the Texas State board; and the Liberty Legal Institute, know better. So do we. For the Liberty Legal Institute the origin of Texas and the United States is about “liberty” and “unity”.Creating such an image requires ignoring the experiences of Native Americans, African Americans, Latina/os, Asian Americans, women and working people, whose experiences demand that we address inequality and struggle as well.
Social studies standards that explain current day inequalities as a failure to take opportunities provided by a system based on liberty, justify and maintain current inequalities. Such standards will help maintain the opportunity gap that has resulted in lower test scores , graduation rates, college enrollment, between white students and students of color. For these reasons we oppose the very premises as well as many of the details of the new standards. For more see Articles. Click on: Texas State Board of Ed Standards.