The Texas SBOE's Historic Revision of History*

Over the past few months, I have found myself involved in many discussions about the Texas State Board of Education and their ridiculous new social studies standards. They are making headlines across the country, and countless friends and acquaintances from outside Texas have e-mailed me asking my opinion--not so much because of what I do for a living, but because I live in Texas, which makes me a part of this travesty, I suppose.

And my official opinion is. . . the whole thing sucks. Besides being politically slanted and backwards, the new standards are so long and specific and unwieldy as to be almost useless. I pity the teachers and administrators who have to sort them out. And I really feel for the poor writers who have to figure out how to create workable materials for Texas classrooms.

I've written and edited textbooks and other educational materials for all the major American publishers for the past 18 years. Lucky for me, I do very little social studies work, and when I do it's elementary social studies. I've refused to dive into the treacherous world of "history" for good reason--it's a trap!!

I know how textbooks are developed. I have lived the process--from development of the initial scope and sequence to watching the fold-and-gathers come out the birthing end of a big machine that I don't know the name of--more times than I can count. But mainly I'm in the trenches of content development. I'm one of many who sit at a desk covered with lists of standards from the "important" states and try to figure out how they can be caressed and coddled to correlate with content and instruction and whatever buzz words the marketing people heard at the last big educational conference. Despite what many people believe, we try to do it in a way that makes some kind of sense and in a way that makes the content interesting to kids. Unfortunately, we often don't succeed. The sad truth is that as states produce longer and longer lists of standards that must be met in order for materials to be eligible for purchase, the development of cohesive and meaningful content becomes almost impossible.

In traditional educational publishing, the biggest markets (CA, FL, TX) drive the development of textbooks that are sold across the country because publishers can't afford to publish special editions for every single state. Because of this, the TX standards potentially play a big role in the development of textbooks that are used in other states. This is why the standards in Texas are big news. Well, that and the fact that the people who determine Texas standards are apparently a bunch of nutballs.

So, it makes for very big headlines when our SBOE does something as boneheaded as passing these newly revised social studies standards. I'm embarrassed to see my home state cast in such a negative light (but, sadly, I'm getting used to it). I'm embarrassed by the ignorance and intolerance demonstrated by people who supposedly "represent" me. But I don't believe that the new standards will change much of anything.

Although niche publishers might try to sell some books by publishing "crazy" history that strongly reflects SBOE members' attempts to re-whitewash history, the big publishers will continue to produce materials that teach history as fairly as possible, because even though Texas may drive the content, they still have to sell the books in other states to make their investment back. Writers have ways of meeting silly standards with carefully worded paragraphs in call-out boxes or in the teacher's edition, leaving the actual content intact.

But the real question is whether the publishers are even going to bother with Texas' new social studies standards. Over the past year, publishers have been scrambling to produce books to meet Texas' convoluted new science standards. You remember those; they made headlines last year. But just last week the Texas legislature decided to postpone adoption and purchase of new science textbooks for at least two years. This means that all the money publishers spent deciphering the science standards and developing materials to meet them is lost for now.

Publishers are, above all, businesses. They're not going to continue to invest untold dollars to develop materials for Texas if Texas isn't going to buy them. This, if nothing else, may save the rest of the US from our ridiculous folly.

But there's even more promising news. The entire educational publishing industry is in flux right now. Schools want to move away from the big, expensive basal textbooks with their shiny boxes of supplementary materials that nobody ever uses. More and more content is being developed to be delivered online and on-demand, allowing teachers to easily customize materials that meet their specific needs on a daily basis. As this becomes more and more common, the great big hardback teach-everything-with-one-book books will be phased out, and content providers will be able to offer content that meets the specific standards of each state. Then Texas' standards will be irrelevant to everyone except for the poor schmucks who make them up. Hallelujah!

None of this makes what's going on in the SBOE okay. For one thing, the system is clearly broken and nobody seems to be moving to fix it. Furthermore, the fact that the new standards are a reflection of the political climate in our state saddens and frightens me. Really, the whole thing is enormously embarrassing. But if you think the standards as they passed are bad, you should have heard some of the stuff they tried to get through that DIDN'T pass. One of the board members actually proposed that we teach children both the "pros and cons" of the Civil Rights Movement. Do you know what the "con" was that this imbecile wanted kids to learn about? The Civil Rights Movement "lead to unrealistic expectations of equality."

That one nearly put me over the edge.

* NB: I'm still processing this whole thing. Opinion subject to change without warning.