Tag Archives: Textbooks

Texas to consider Mexican-American textbook critics decry as racist

School bus

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – The State Board of Education in Texas is expected to hear testimony next week from critics of a new textbook for Mexican-American studies who say the tome is riddled with mistakes and perpetrates demeaning stereotypes.

The book’s publisher, run by an evangelical Christian and self-described Republican patriot, argues it is academically sound and is being targeted by those advancing a liberal political agenda.

A decision by the Texas State Board of Education to approve the book could have wide ramifications. The conservative board is responsible for buying 48 million textbooks a year, and volumes that win its support often are marketed by publishers to school districts nationally.

The textbook being considered at a hearing on Tuesday in Austin, titled “Mexican American Heritage,” was the only one submitted after Texas put out a request for a book to be used in a proposed high school elective course on Mexican-American studies.

One of the few liberal members of the board, Ruben Cortez, said in a statement this week that the book “describes Mexicans as lazy, alleges that Mexican culture does not value hard work and that Mexicans bring drug and crime into the country.”

He commissioned a body of academics, mostly professors of history, to examine the book. They said in a report this week it was filled with errors and did not meet state standards.

“We have a web of racist assertions that are built in passages, that are built on multiple errors. This is a textbook that is a polemic against the Mexican-American community,” said Trinidad Gonzales, a history instructor at South Texas College who was on the book review team.

One passage regarded as biased concerned views employers have had of Mexican workers.

It reads: “Stereotypically, Mexicans were viewed as lazy compared to European or American workers … It was also traditional to skip work on Mondays, and drinking on the job could be a problem.”

Cynthia Dunbar, chief executive of Momentum Instruction which published the book, said in a phone interview the criticism is unfounded.

“There is absolutely no context, motivation and no agenda to in any way do anything negative or detrimental to Mexican-Americans or Mexican-American history,” said Dunbar, a former Texas state school board member from 2007 to 2011 who is now based in Virginia.

She is listed as a contributor to the book, which was written by two people whose credentials are not listed.

The state board likely will make a decision later this year whether to approve the book.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Marguerita Choy)

Texas Textbooks Under Fire For Referring To Moses

A series of social studies textbooks are coming under fire because they make positive references to Christianity and mention Moses and the Ten Commandments.

The Texas Board of Education is voting on the textbooks that state the Ten Commandments were an influence on the founding of the nation and the laws of the country.

The textbooks also contain factual information such as terrorism being linked to Islam and challenges to climate change claims.

“These textbooks were teaching pretty much the opposite of the truth,” Emile Lester, a reviewer from the University of Mary Washington, stated. “You would hope publishers felt their main allegiance be to the education of students, but it was quite obvious that their main goal was to appease members of the State Board of Educators.”

However, supporters of the textbook say the anti-Christian people attempting to stop the books are allowing their hatred of people of faith to influence the truth of the nation’s history.

“[L]et us not forget the religious character of our origin,” American statesman Daniel Webster declared during his famous “Plymouth Oration” in 1820. “Our fathers were brought hither for their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political or literary,” said David Bradley of the State Board of Educators.