Issue of Multiculturalism Dominates Standards Debate

By Debra Viadero

Washington--When Nguyen Minh Chau's son was growing up, she says, he had a "terrible time'' with history classes in school.

The reason, suggests Ms. Chau, a Vietnamese immigrant, was that her son saw few Asians like himself in the history books. And the scant information he found about his culture, she adds, was often mistaken or distorted.

"Students in schools need to know other people than those traditionally found in the textbooks,'' Ms. Chau argued at a meeting here this month of the National...