The next year -- 2002 and the History Textbooks

I was dismayed at being unable to keep the science textbooks from giving three-quarters of the students the concept that they were inherently second-class citizens. But I wasn't about to give up. History textbooks were up for adoption in 2002. I was able to start reviewing them in May, when samples first become available.

Understandably, many historic photos had to be as shown. But some were not in that category. Such as one showing a modern-day town-hall meeting -- with only white men!

There could have been more photos of historic events with minorities and white women. They could have added to text that described events impacted by, or impacting on, white women and minorities. However, the textbooks I reviewed were sorely lacking in such text or photos.

I had realized that analyzing the handling of the history required that I create a spreadsheet detailing the person or event, the date, and the reason why she/he/it was historically important. I researched a number of books and websites. The spreadsheet had almost 1500 items when I had to stop to prepare my testimony. I had the spreadsheet arranged such that it could be compared with the index of any textbook. I only had time to do so with one of the textbooks. It had 155 of the items, or just over 10%.

Worse, one of the items it did list -- World War II -- had many pages of text and photos of white men. It had three short paragraphs, and no photos, of what everyone else did. Nothing about how blacks, women, and Japanese-Americans had to fight our government to have a right to fight for the U.S. Nor how the Hispanic Railroad Brigade made it possible for the Allies to succeed in North Africa and Europe. Nor any real recognition of the superb Tuskegee airmen and other black brigades. Nor the highly decorated Japanese-Americans. Nor the 65 million miles flown by American women in support of the war. Nor the millions of women who became "Rosie the Riveters," and how that helped lead to the Women's Liberation movement.

At the hearing by the State Board of Education, I gave copies of the spreadsheet to each Director. I told them verbally and in writing about the one book I'd reviewed, that I'd worked with four others in preparing the spreadsheet, and they weren't much better.

Their reaction? "Next."

They just didn't understand that the lack of coverage of what ancestors of minorities and white women did and felt, along with the problems with photos showing white females and minorities almost always as second-class citizens, would leave students with the mindset that they are inherently incapable of succeeding because of their race and/or gender.

This wrong mindset is one major cause of the 30% drop-out rate, and the dropping out of society even of many of those who get their diplomas -- they settle for jobs at McDonald's or a motel, or mowing lawns. These drop-outs remain marginal citizens for the remainder of their lives, instead of becoming empowered citizens, as doctors, lawyers, business people, writers, etc. Being marginalized instead of empowered, they can't buy much, hurting businesses and their employees; and can't pay much taxes, hurting governments trying to take care of marginal citizens along with schools, highways, and safety.

Okay, on to 2003 and the biology, career, and family-life textbooks!

Welcome to the Coalition Enabling Our Children Blog!

Welcome to this blog. The Coalition Enabling Our Children got started at the beginning of 2005 when it became clear that students needed a bill passed that would require textbooks to empower them, not damage them for life.

To understand how this came about, a little background:

In late August, 2001, I learned that citizens can get involved in decisions regarding textbooks up for adoption each year in Texas. That year, the science textbooks were up. As a former aerospace engineer and now a writer specializing in space and nanotechnology, and long interested in education issues, I wanted to look at some textbooks.

The next testimony period for the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) was in early September. I had a chance to review only one textbook. It had science, space, and grammar problems.

But what stood out to me was that many of the photographs showed white males (boys and men) in positions having higher status, or doing something exciting, or just being in the photos, whereas white females (girls/women) and minorities (both genders) were generally shown in low-status positions, doing humdrum things, or not even in the photos -- Hispanics especially. So my testimony pointed out the science, space, grammar, and photo problems. The SBOE reaction? "Thank you, next!"

No one else showed any concern for the photo problem, so I realized I had to specialize. By the November hearing, I had looked at 17 more science textbooks. Again I testified to numerous problems, including that

1. many books showed males twice as often as females;
2. some textbooks showed women only in careers such as research assistant;
3. e.g., one textbook only showed one black in a career -- a ballerina, on p. 359. I.e., black students wouldn't have any role model until the year was half gone, and even then, it wasn't a science career; and,
4. e.g., this same textbook depicted NO Hispanic in any career, and another textbook only showed a Hispanic man involved with natural foods.

I also provided each SBOE director with a copy of a paper showing and interpreting representative photos from several books. But they still didn't get it. My pleas to not let these books be published until many photos had been reshot (or other stock photos found) met with blank stares. Later, the Board voted to accept all these damaging textbooks as is.

This post is long enough. I'll continue in the next with what happened the next year, with the history textbooks!