I’ve been blogging lately (and just finished this larger story) about efforts to rewrite social studies standards in Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio. History, not surprisingly, has been an especially thorny issue. And so this item from the Associated Press caught my eye, about the rejection of a state history textbook by school officials in a western Nevada district.
The Elko County school district is reportedly trying to get a refund from publisher Northwest Speaks for an 8th grade history book called “Nevada History: Past, Present, and Tomorrow” because of grammatical errors in the text and complaints about how race and gender are presented. For a much more detailed look at the situation, check out this story from the Elko Daily Free Press.
The textbooks aren’t exactly new. They were given to schools in April 2009, though individual schools distributed them to classrooms at different times, the story says.
The district’s new superintendent, Jeff Zander, told central-office staff to collect the books, which are now stored in a warehouse.
Apparently, the state requires Nevada districts to teach students about the state’s history, but there was no current textbook. Nevada history is a nine-week component of 8th grade U.S. history.
The textbooks cost the district $52,346, which was paid for through donations by two local mining companies.