History Repeats Itself in Texas For Textbook-Review Process

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Publishers have carefully packaged their flagship textbooks and brand-new products for the painstaking review. Interest groups, educators, and members of the public have started weighing in with criticisms and concerns over content and presentation. And education officials have prepared for hours of eye-aching reading and marathon debates.

With the Texas state school board gearing up to decide which textbooks will be used to teach history and social studies to the state's 4 million public schoolchildren, the recurring battle over what students learn in the subjects has begun anew. A recent public hearing, as well as competing campaigns to influence text content and selection, reflect some of the tension between conservatives and liberals. But state board members say ideology is not welcome in this debate.

"I believe a lot of the contest between different groups is due to rhetoric," board member Cynthia A. Thornton, a retired government and economics teacher, said. "I don't want to get into a bunch of assumptions and watch them form battle lines. ... If you can't give me a page number, and you can't give me a line [in a textbook where there is a specific concern], then...