A move by Texas educators to revise social studies textbooks has one California state senator pressing to ensure that Texas doesn't mess with us.
On Monday, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed legislation by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to ensure that California textbooks aren't subject to the same curriculum changes proposed in Texas. Yee is worried that, because of the large number of public school students in Texas, the "extreme right-wing curriculum changes" could influence textbooks nationwide.
Some historians have criticized the revisions as being historically inaccurate and an attempt to rewrite history. Proponents of the Texas plan say the current historical narrative has been hostile to religion and capitalism, and that the liberal left is distorting the proposed curriculum changes.
Among the changes, which recently got preliminary approval by the largely conservative Texas board of education, include replacing terms such as "capitalism" with "free-enterprise system." Another amendment requires that lessons on the McCarthy era include discussion of communist infiltration of the U.S. government. And, hip-hop would be dropped from the list of the nation's important cultural movements while including country and western music.
- Marjie Lundstrom
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