12-15-2006, 01:03 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A pile of pablum
by Lance T. Izumi
<b>Political correctness distorts too many California textbooks </b>
When "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno asks young people simple political or historical questions during his popular "Jay Walking" segment, the confused answers are every bit as sad as they are funny.
How is it that seemingly affluent twentysomethings in Los Angeles think that the New Deal refers to a hamburger commercial? One major factor may be the textbooks that teach more about multiculturalism than about our nation's history.
Though California has a strong set of academic content standards for core subjects, the textbooks are of varying quality. Especially in history, issues of political correctness often blur the objective presentation of facts. A major tool of the politically correct crowd is California's social-content guidelines, which require positive portrayals of racial and gender groups.
According to New York University education professor Diane Ravitch, because of these guidelines, "California's textbooks and other materials must instill a 'sense of pride' in students' heritages and may not include 'adverse reflection' on any group." Ravitch, who served on a California state panel in the 1980s that tried to improve the history curriculum, also notes that the state Legislature required equal gender portrayals in textbooks.
Foolish Gender Equity
"That means, among other things," she writes, "that an equal number of male and female characters must be depicted in 'roles in which they are mentally and physically active, being creative, solving problems.' " The ironic result of these rules is an unbalanced presentation of history.
A 2004 report on textbook adoption by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation found that "American history is trimmed and tucked to fit California's social-content guidelines." Thus, in the treatment of World War II, "as much space is devoted to events on the homefront, such as the employment of women in war industries" as to "the events on the battlefronts of the Pacific and Atlantic."
California textbooks include the popular "American Nation," published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. In a companion study by the Fordham institute, based on historians' reviews of major textbooks, "American Nation" drew a dismal C-minus grade for a range of failings. One reviewer observed that in an effort to be inclusive of women and racial minorities, the textbook "lavishes attention on people of relatively minor consequence, like the woman who established the first tennis court, the Soviet cosmonaut who became the first woman in space and six female biologists who spent two weeks underwater without surfacing." The biography of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in "American Nation" is longer than the bio of Abraham Lincoln.
Furthermore, the textbook's "insistent emphasis on multiculturalism" distorts history by leaving out any mention of the influence of ancient Roman and Greek culture on America, but does include discussion of Chinese and Meso-American culture. American democracy gets short shrift, as do Christianity and Judaism. Key events such as the Revolutionary War, World War I and the Cold War receive insufficient explanations.
Dishonest History
Education "experts" often scoff when average people say that schools taught more or better in the past. Yet, when multicultural regulations require that valuable textbook space be devoted to politically correct propagandizing, that leaves less room for explaining the seminal events that shaped our nation.
"Certainly, textbooks should accurately portray society in all its complexity," says Ravitch. "But to impose contemporary political requirements on how the events are portrayed only ensures that the history we teach our students is inaccurate and dishonest."
The sad bottom line is that our children not only know less than their grandparents, much of what they claim to know is not really so.
Just ask Jay Leno.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lance Izumi is director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached at lizumi@pacificresearch.org.
http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/opd/2...06-11-14li.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
by Lance T. Izumi
<b>Political correctness distorts too many California textbooks </b>
When "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno asks young people simple political or historical questions during his popular "Jay Walking" segment, the confused answers are every bit as sad as they are funny.
How is it that seemingly affluent twentysomethings in Los Angeles think that the New Deal refers to a hamburger commercial? One major factor may be the textbooks that teach more about multiculturalism than about our nation's history.
Though California has a strong set of academic content standards for core subjects, the textbooks are of varying quality. Especially in history, issues of political correctness often blur the objective presentation of facts. A major tool of the politically correct crowd is California's social-content guidelines, which require positive portrayals of racial and gender groups.
According to New York University education professor Diane Ravitch, because of these guidelines, "California's textbooks and other materials must instill a 'sense of pride' in students' heritages and may not include 'adverse reflection' on any group." Ravitch, who served on a California state panel in the 1980s that tried to improve the history curriculum, also notes that the state Legislature required equal gender portrayals in textbooks.
Foolish Gender Equity
"That means, among other things," she writes, "that an equal number of male and female characters must be depicted in 'roles in which they are mentally and physically active, being creative, solving problems.' " The ironic result of these rules is an unbalanced presentation of history.
A 2004 report on textbook adoption by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation found that "American history is trimmed and tucked to fit California's social-content guidelines." Thus, in the treatment of World War II, "as much space is devoted to events on the homefront, such as the employment of women in war industries" as to "the events on the battlefronts of the Pacific and Atlantic."
California textbooks include the popular "American Nation," published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. In a companion study by the Fordham institute, based on historians' reviews of major textbooks, "American Nation" drew a dismal C-minus grade for a range of failings. One reviewer observed that in an effort to be inclusive of women and racial minorities, the textbook "lavishes attention on people of relatively minor consequence, like the woman who established the first tennis court, the Soviet cosmonaut who became the first woman in space and six female biologists who spent two weeks underwater without surfacing." The biography of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in "American Nation" is longer than the bio of Abraham Lincoln.
Furthermore, the textbook's "insistent emphasis on multiculturalism" distorts history by leaving out any mention of the influence of ancient Roman and Greek culture on America, but does include discussion of Chinese and Meso-American culture. American democracy gets short shrift, as do Christianity and Judaism. Key events such as the Revolutionary War, World War I and the Cold War receive insufficient explanations.
Dishonest History
Education "experts" often scoff when average people say that schools taught more or better in the past. Yet, when multicultural regulations require that valuable textbook space be devoted to politically correct propagandizing, that leaves less room for explaining the seminal events that shaped our nation.
"Certainly, textbooks should accurately portray society in all its complexity," says Ravitch. "But to impose contemporary political requirements on how the events are portrayed only ensures that the history we teach our students is inaccurate and dishonest."
The sad bottom line is that our children not only know less than their grandparents, much of what they claim to know is not really so.
Just ask Jay Leno.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lance Izumi is director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached at lizumi@pacificresearch.org.
http://www.pacificresearch.org/press/opd/2...06-11-14li.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->