BRIEF REVIEW OF PUBLISHED ITEMS FROM THE DRAFT TEXAS SOCIAL STUDIES STANDARDS (MARCH 2010)

3.14.10 - Erich Martel - The attempt to reduce US (or any other) history to “liberal” versus “conservative” history reduces history and the history classroom to a tug of war between self-serving factions who view history and social studies as vehicles for promoting their agendas.

BRIEF REVIEW OF PUBLISHED ITEMS FROM THE DRAFT TEXAS SOCIAL STUDIES STANDARDS (MARCH 2010)

March 13, 2010

The attempt to reduce US (or any other) history to “liberal” versus “conservative” history reduces history and the history classroom to a tug of war between self-serving factions who view history and social studies as vehicles for promoting their agendas.

My premise:  Good history is neither “liberal” nor “conservative”; rather, it is fact-based, organized in units organized chronologically into eras and themes.  Most of the events in any period of history are well-documented, but always open to revision on the basis of new evidence. 

A good teacher helps students understand the various interpretations, including those that might be termed “liberal” or “conservative,” what those labels mean and how they have changed their meanings over time. 

What is so disturbing about the draft Texas standards is that they appear to require the teacher to teach prescribed politicized interpretations as fact. 

If the NYT accurately described the Texas BOE votes, Texas will be mandating the teaching of viewpoints and historically inaccurate information.

Here are some of the problems I spotted from the article:

1.  David Bradley argues that one can’t find “separation of church and state” in the US Constitution.  

Comment:

But neither could he find what he favors, e.g. “free enterprise” or such practices as presidential cabinet officers, congressional committees, and the requirement that cabinet officers be approved by the Senate (the Const uses the terminology, “advice and consent,” i.e. nothing more specific). 

Compared to the authority assumed by George Washington on the basis of the "advice and consent" clause to establish a         cabinet and submit his nominees to the US Senate, the First Amendment’s establishment clause is much more specific in         its intent to separate church and state - for the benefit of each.   

2. “Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)”

    Comment:

    Removing a major historical figure for a high school curriculum in one of the fifty United States, because he is “not well liked among conservatives” is a very blatant act of political censorship. 

    I find it hard to believe that this is not a violation of some provision of the Texas state constitution.  Surely, the role of Board of Education members does not allow them to remove historical information on the basis of their likes and dislikes. 

    If he said that, then it’s a historical fact.  What revolutions did Aquinas, Calvin & Blackstone inspire?

3. “They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, …”

Comment:

Perfectly legitimate … depending on whether:

- Teachers will be expected to do so objectively, not as “correct points of view."

            a)         Describe the conservative resurgence

            b)         The reasons for its resurgence

            c)         What it favored and what it opposed

            d)         Why it receded in the 1990s and then experienced a comeback in the 2000s

            e)         Explain the meaning of the term “conservative,” as used to refer to the 1980s and 1990s:

                        - Not all “conservatives” agreed on all issues labeled “conservative”

            f)         Explain other political resurgences

OR:

- That teachers will be expected to teach the viewpoints labeled as “conservative” as the “correct” points of view.

4. “Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

Comment:  This is false history:  It betrays unfamiliarity with the basic historical chronology of the events of the civil rights movement.   The modern civil rights movement is usually dated as starting in 1954 with the Brown decision or the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-56, and ending with the two civil rights acts:  the 1964 Public Accommodations Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The civil rights movement was aimed at ending legalized segregation as mandated by state law in the approx. 20 states that had “separate but equal” laws (the traditional South, including Texas, as well as several other states).  It was also aimed at removing arbitrary obstacles to voting.

    The Black Panther Party began in Oakland, California, in 1965, was aimed at police treatment of blacks as well as economic issues.  It was not and did not promote itself as a civil rights organization. 

It was primarily a northern and urban movement; whereas the civil rights movement was southern in both small towns and cities.  Most importantly, the civil rights movement achieved its legal and legislative goals in 1964 and 1965, before the BPP was formed and spread. 

What is the purpose of attempting to lump the BPP from a later era with the earlier civil rights movement? 

The fact that the Black Panther Party, a black nationalist movement, arose in the mid-60s is a legitimate subject.  The fact that it is proposed almost as a put-down to the civil rights movement reveals a basic flaw in the social studies draft (as reported):  It views the teaching of history as a battle of ideologies, rather than the illumination of the past for an understanding of the present.

Why not include the debates that took place in the Texas legislature with both Democrats and Republicans on both sides of the civil rights issues?

5. “He [Dr. McElroy] also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.”

Comment:              

Of course, this statement is true and any suggestion that it was just a Democratic Party proposal would be a very serious distortion of history.  The way it is written suggests a great deal of misinformation about the two parties during the period of the civil rights movement.

    Unlike the fairly polarized contrasts between the two parties today, the two parties in the 1950s and 1960s were spread more widely across the political (conservative – liberal) spectrum and – depending on the issue – with considerable overlap on many issues.

    There were political liberals in the Republican Party and political conservatives in the Democratic Party.  During the early 1960s, the Democratic Party was still the party of segregation at the same time that it was increasingly the more "liberal" of the two.   Many of its segregationist elected officials publicly referred to their views as "conservative."  Republican opponents of civil rights legislation, e.g. Barry Goldwater, largely based their positions on a states’ rights view.   

    The vote on the 1964 (July 2, 1964) Civil Rights Act (Public Accommodations) was as follows:

    House of Representatives

                        For:                 284 (151D + 133 R)

                        Against:           127 (98D + 29 R)

    Senate

                        For:                             72 (48D + 24 R)

                        Against:           28 (22D + 6R)

6. “Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation.”

Comment: 

These are all legitimate subjects for students to evaluate.  Students should learn to critically analyze all events, including enacted as well as proposed laws.

7. “He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.”

    Comment:

    The internment of German and Italian Americans did occur and should be mentioned, but was not nearly as comprehensive as the internment of Japanese Americans:

-   Most of the interned German and Italian Americans were immigrants, but very few were interned (my father, a German immigrant, was a tool and die maker, who worked on the top-secret Norden bomb site at Bendix Aviation.  He was investigated, but never interned).

-   By contrast, all but a handful of the 110,000 Japanese-Americans were Nisei, born in the U.S.; yet virtually all were interned.  What about the Japanese-Americans in Hawaii?  Why were West Coast Nisei, but not Hawaiian Nisei or Issei interned – even though Hawaii was much more in danger of invasion than California? 

The fact of German and Italian American internment does not constitute evidence that internment of Japanese-Americans did not include racial motives.

7. “Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.”

Comment:

    McCarthyism refers to smear attacks not based on evidence.  The existence of espionage networks does not establish the accuracy of Sen. McCarthy’s attacks and the havoc they caused.  Both McCarthyism and role of the espionage networks are important for students to learn.

Erich Martel

Department of Social Studies

Woodrow Wilson H.S.

Washington, D.C.

ehmartel@starpower.net

In addiiton: I am also providing the link to my review of the 2003-04 Minnesota draft standards, because the tense “conservative” and “liberal” misuse of history and other social studies standards for ideological ends is very similar to what occurred in Minnesota during the drafting and public comment periods.

Before my first review of the Minnesota standards was publicly posted, I was publicly criticized by MN "liberals" for being associated with "the anti-public school Fordham Foundation" (for two essays on 911) despite having been a public school teacher since 1969, and then unfavorably compared to Calvin Coolidge by a "conservative" group, EdAction, for explaining that the Declaration of Independence is not part of US law. 

Review of the MN social studies standards, 2nd draft (January 2004):

(I explain in greater detail what constitutes good history & social studies standards; then review the 2nd draft and propose specific changes)http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/040124.htm

Mention of my reviews by Acting Commissioner Yecke in testimony before the MN House Education Comm. (she cited the specific recommendations that helped her revise the draft):
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2004/02/17_pugmiret_standards/