Charging that proposed revisions in Texas’ high-school social-studies curricula distort the historical record, more than 1,000 historians, most of them college history professors, wrote a letter this month to the Texas State Board of Education urging its members to put the brakes on the changes. The board is scheduled to vote on the revisions next month.
Since Texas has one of the biggest markets in the high-school-textbook industry, standards approved in the Lone Star State often end up being reflected in textbooks distributed in other states.
Keith A. Erekson, an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso, was one of the organizers of the letter campaign. Mr. Erekson, who is also director of the university’s Center for History Teaching and Learning, spoke with The Chronicle about his colleagues’ plans for protests. Excerpts of that conversation follow.
Q. What, specifically, did the board propose that’s so controversial?
A. We are concerned generally that the board is minimizing the role of women and ethnic minorities—especially Hispanics—in a state where 48 percent of the students are Hispanic. We are also responding to the widespread media reporting of recommendations to change terminology, strike Thomas Jefferson from world history, and elevate Jefferson Davis. Last week the board finally released a written draft of its proposals, and we are going over it closely and will present additional commentary soon.
Q. With a vote coming next month, isn’t it a little late to be challenging the revisions?
A. We’ve been watching, following the process, participating, and making comments all along. What got us alarmed and prompted us to write the letter now was that at the board’s last meeting in March, they turned their backs on historians and other experts and said, ‘Now we’re going to do it the way we want to do it.’ If they were so open to all of these committees and experts being involved, why ram 100 amendments through in March? We just wanted to say, before sealing the deal for the next 12 to 15 years, let’s stop and think about it.
Q. Aside from being a history professor, why do you care so deeply about this issue?
A. I have four kids who are going to go through the school system over the next 15 years, and I direct a teacher-education program that is preparing students who will have to teach according to these standards. I’m very concerned about standards that, among other things, minimize the contributions of Hispanics and other minorities, as well as women.
Q. How do you plan to keep up the fight to ensure that textbook standards are accurate and objective?
A. We’ll continue to collect signatures and present our letter and the signatures to the board at its meeting on May 19. The board has opened a generic e-mail account to receive public comment, so we will follow that procedure, too—though the fact that the comment period closes three days before the board is scheduled to hold its final hearing leaves little time for a thorough review of public feedback. We have also been invited to testify before the State Legislature later this month. The board’s proposals must be signed into law by the Legislature, and over the past three or four years the Legislature has slowly stripped the board of its power.
