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Kathianne
09-04-2010, 10:32 AM
Part 3.

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/09/01/indoctrination-nation/?singlepage=true

Hog Trash is going to like this one. ;)

[This is Part III of a five-part essay; if you haven't yet seen them, first read Part I and Part II.]

While the media generally goes into hysterics every time the Texas State Board of Education meets, with commentators hurling mockery, outrage and vitriol at the board members, there is a total lack of interest when other states’ boards of education meet for the same purpose. Yet Texas is not the only state that influences the content of American schooling: a few other states also determine textbook standards that end up being used in other parts of the country. California, in particular, is also an important textbook market for publishers. Yet mysteriously, one never hears of any controversy erupting when the California State Board of Education meets to decide the content of textbooks used throughout the state and in many other school districts around the country which shun the Texas-approved textbooks.

Why is that? Could it simply be that California-approved textbooks aren’t as politicized as those in Texas?

Quite the contrary. If anything, the textbooks approved by the California State Board of Education are even more politicized than Texas textbooks, and more ideologically biased. So: Why does the media ignore what happens in California textbooks? Because the state’s bias goes the other way. California-approved social studies textbooks are politically correct in the extreme, with multiculturalism and “social justice” as the defining characteristics. The pressure groups and board members setting policy for California’s (and hence a substantial portion of America’s) textbooks exceed their Texan counterparts in their extremism, but since California pushes the “correct” kind of extremism, you never hear about it.

And I’m not just talking about overt political bias, as exemplified by the previously-mentioned A People’s History of the United States and countless similar study materials with a blatant left-leaning slant. I’m talking about a subtler form of indoctrination.

As pointed out in this article written by a textbook editor,

To make the list in California, books must be scrupulously stereotype free:
No textbook can show African Americans playing sports, Asians using computers, or women taking care of children. Anyone who stays in textbook publishing long enough develops radar for what will and won’t get past the blanding process of both the conservative and liberal watchdogs....

Kathianne
09-04-2010, 11:33 AM
While I did jest about HT, I too find this a very important topic. Grab any text on American History from grades k-12. In each you will notice a gaping hole in discussion of historical figures one would assume every kid would know. They are just MIA. Yet Queen Liluokalanai not only takes up a page and a half in a civics text, she also gets another half page picture and bio.

One would think that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Grimke sisters were the only leaders of the abolition movement and all reform movements. Mentioned in passing are the men who supported or disagreed with them.

Like women, entire sections of each chapter, regardless of topic are devoted to 'other minorities.' Problem with that is that minorities and women had support roles for the most part, until the later part of 20th C.