Did you know that a group of fifteen people basically control your child’s curricula? No, this isn’t another secret Department of Education panel, but the Texas state board of education, which has the final say over the Lone Star State’s academic standards--the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or TEKS. We’ve long known that a handful of big states control textbooks and their publishers--and that the decisions made by those states reverberate in others who purchase the same texts. Which makes the current debates over the social studies curriculum that much more disturbing. A seven-person self-identified “Christian right” voting bloc on the state board is bent on ensuring that children learn that America is a “Christian nation” and that the founders thought in distinctly biblical terms. They’re quick to ignore or overrule the recommendations of teacher panels that draft the standards and the testimony of experts in a variety of fields. And their power is something unique. Prentice Hall, which publishes the ubiquitous Magruder’s American Government, which at one point controlled 60-65 percent of the national market for twelfth grade U.S. history texts, changed its signature “living Constitution” to “enduring Constitution” in response to Texas board pressure. Last fall, when the board didn’t get reading lists from the writing teams that emphasized stories with strong moral lessons, they did an end-run-around and met with publishers directly. The lists were changed in accordance with the board’s wishes. The mad, mad world of textbook adoption might have just gotten a little madder.
“How Christian Were the Founders?,” by Russell Shorto, New York Times Magazine, February 11, 2010