Texas School Board History Textbook Revisions
Artist: N/A
Year: 2010
Date of Action: March 2010
Region: North America
Location: Austin, Texas
Subject: Political/Economic/Social Opinion, Youth
Medium: Literature
Confronting Bodies: Texas School Board
Description of Artwork: The the state approved textbooks before this vote contained material that, the 10 Republican board members argued, depicted the founding fathers as too secular, included unnecessary passages about Hip Hop in American Culture, confirmed the presence of communist infiltration of the U.S. government during the Cold War, did not give enough attention to President Ronald Reagan, and did not include enough information about Confederacy President Jefferson Davis.
The Incident: The Texas School Board was set to review Social Studies textbook content requirements in 2010, and the 10 Republican board members argued that the material did not contain enough content of the material listed above. Many historians and other activists expressed concern that this gave Texas textbooks a distinctly conservative bias, and that, given Texas' massive textbook economy, this might cause other states to adopt the conservatively charged textbooks.
Results of Incident: In a perfect party split, the board voted 10-5 to approve the changes to Texas' textbooks.
Source:
• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html
See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031700560.html
