Texas NAACP/LULAC groups have filed a major complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, asking them to investigate the new Texas State Board of Education Texas Curriculum Standards:
The Texas NAACP, Texas LULAC and Texas Association of Black Personnel in Higher Education (TABPHE) are holding a press conference, with partnering groups to announce the filing of a request for a proactive review by the U.S. Department of Education and its Civil rights division. The request addresses many aspects of discrimination against minority public school students in Texas, including recent changes to history and educational standards in social studies. Texas State NAACP President and National Board Member Gary Bledsoe said, “Education remains the most critical element in the long term economic and social interests of all American citizens. Reasonable people of good will must guarantee that all students, regardless of race or economic circumstances, be given the tools needed to become successful in a rapidly changing global economy. We must also be held to a high standard of accuracy in conveying historical events to students who will use this information to compete for educational access not only in Texas, but increasingly around the country and world. We must not allow the use of our compulsory education system to misinform and negatively impact the academic capacity of our most important natural resource – our children. Our action today seeks on objective review of the partisan attack on the public education system in the State of Texas.”
State LULAC President Joey Cardenas said, “We were shocked at the actions by the State Board of Education in emasculating our history. It is necessary for our own well-being and that of the people of our State that we do all that we can to ensure that what they have done does not end up being a reality. Our State and nation will suffer from what they have done and emotionally and psychologically it will greatly harm our young people. Dr. Rod Fluker of TABPHE said that one of the things we are most worried about is how this will impact teachers and the kinds of attitudes it will bring to our next generation of young people to move into this field. This is a serious problem.” Bledsoe said that one thing we are looking for is to invalidate the standards so that they do not become a reality. “This is like a criminal assault. The message is that you have no worth. We cannot let this become official policy.” Cardenas added that “we have engaged the State in litigation before and will do so again if necessary. “
In challenging the Standards, the Texas NAACP wishes to applaud State Board of Education Members Lawrence Allen and Mavis Knight for supporting us in this initiative. Dr. Felicia Scott of TABPHE said that it is important to note that the most offensive items were opposed by all 5 minority Board members who voted as a block, “that really says something about how offensive these matters are, and this is from a purely academic and humanistic perspective with no injection of politics.”
A Houston Chronicle report provides information on why the complaint has been filed:
A school curriculum teaching children about violent Black Panthers while playing down Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks is not only inaccurate but discriminatory, the Texas NAACP and LULAC said Monday in a joint complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education. The complaint asks the department’s Office of Civil Rights to review Texas’ new social studies curriculum standards approved by the State Board of Education and to take legal action if the state tries to implement the standards the groups call “racially or ethnically offensive,” as well as historically inaccurate. The new standards also balance the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis and attempt to point out positive aspects of slavery.
The Chronicle story adds some other important points:
A review of the new social studies curriculum standards by historians and college professors indicates that 83 percent of the required historical figures and notable persons for students to study are white. Only 16 percent are African American or Latino. Minority groups, including state legislators, warned the 15-member State Board of Education throughout the curriculum standards process that it was shortchanging the achievements of minorities. Of the 4.8 million children attending Texas public schools last year, 66 percent were minorities. Whites make up two-thirds of the State Board of Education.
The complaint to OCR statement has generated considerable debate and discussion in the Texas media.
Just recently, Professor Kevin Michael Foster, a graduate faculty member in the Departments of African and African Diaspora Studies, Curriculum and Instruction, and Educational Administration, at the University of Texas at Austin added these savvy comments (he gave me permission to reprint this email sent to those working with NAACP/LULAC) on the problems of teaching our best high school students who know little, or are miseducated about, U.S. and Texas history:
On the tail of the complaint to the Dept of Ed’s OCR, I can’t help but again express my thorough frustration with the social studies knowledge (and dispositions) among the Texas-taught undergraduate students I work with at UT Austin. Encouraged by Board Member Knight’s interest in what is taught elsewhere, I’d also like to think about multiple strategies — a program of activities — to see to the good sense education of Texas school children regardless of the “standards” that we end up with.
. . . . My general experience is that the miseducation of high achieving students in Texas is thorough — not simply that they have been undereducated, but that they have been and are systematically miseducated in the sense used by Carter G. Woodson. Black and non-black, Hispanic and non-Hispanic, huge numbers across demographic groups doubt the intelligence and worth of non-whites as students as UT. It is especially painful to see Black and Brown kids who finished in the top ten percent of their high school classes yet come to UT with doubts about their own intelligence and worth. They have been taught the glories of The Alamo and Texas Independence with no context to bring out (for instance) the historic role of the slavery issue in the region. In defiance of the historical record and decades of historical analyses, they are taught that the Civil War was about “state’s rights” and not really about slavery (as if in this context those two were separable). They are taught that Affirmative Action is among the greatest unfairnesses today — a red herring of the first order — especially for settings like UT, where the only meaningful affirmative action that takes place is for student athletes (and in a context where even there it is not done with adherence to the spirit of the original concept).
By contrast, and to Board member Knight’s query, in my youth I was required to read Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois), Up From Slavery (BTW), The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Why We Can’t Wait (MLK), The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman (Gaines), Mules and Men (Zora Hurston), large chunks of The New Negro (Alain Locke, ed) and other texts. During most of those years I lived on Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue and was expected to know who this important and great woman was as well. Much of my reading was required in school. That which was not required by the school was required by my father and nurtured by my (former schoolteacher & guidance counselor) grandmother. Today we still need both forces — what the approved curriculum standards require and what we as a community require in addition.
As I raise my 10 year old son and 8 year old daughter, I perceive a profound need for a war on multiple fronts. One front is that of the specific Texas Curriculum Standards. And even here, while there is a need for straight on attack (e.g. “complaints” to OCR), there is also space for battle on the flanks (for instance cataloging and publicly rebutting the problems with the standards and providing parents with talking points for conversations with teachers and principals as they ensure that their children aren’t fully subject to the brainwash education).
Another space for action is to actively create and disseminate a supplemental curriculum, one specifically aimed at correcting for the anticipated (and realized) negative consequences of students (of all backgrounds) being taught histories that validate the indefensible, that force classroom discussion into ridiculous directions, and that undermine true knowledge of self and history among African American students, Latino students and others who find their well-informed understandings (or even nascent yet accurate understandings) of themselves and their world under assault. To take just one example,what if students were expected to read and consider Uncle Tom’s Cabin, easily one of the most important books in U.S. History, gigantically influential in its time, for the longest time second in sales only to the Bible, and a text that raises the paradox of having emancipatory goals while simultaneously cementing damaging stereotypes. There is so much to work with in this highly readable text — for history, for literature, for critical thinking — and yet most students have not read it.
In this sad state of affairs I am sure of at least two things: 1) We must act to alter inaccurate standards; and 2) we must in the meantime produce and disseminate viable supplements to counter the damage that the inaccurate standards are doing in the meantime. For those whose official capacities allow it, proaction should not be seen as an option but rather as a responsibility.
Because Texas has this central selection of textbooks process, publishers often adapt their textbooks used across the country to these biased and racialized Texas standards. So these reactionary decisions affect children and others in many other states. As George Orwell once said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Many thanks, Joe. Would Prof Foster mind my reprinting his email to a post on my blog? Correcting the racism in soft subjects is a huge, huge deal to me.
I thought the Texas public school system was absolutely horrible when we arrived here…but couldn’t imagine it being worse, literally, than it already was then. Back then I saw it as a huge cult that had dominated the public education system here, but oh no no no, that was just the tip of the ice berg apparently. I seriously feel very bad for any and all kids regardless of color who attend the Texas public education system. I will bypass the disservice it is to all students. The only two positive things that might come out of an education in the Texas public schools is the ability to read, write, and do some math…anything beyond that?
One of my friends, who happens to be republican and had worked in the public schools for many years is too appalled by the Texas board of education–she wasn’t sure how they even formed but concluded with all seriousness that they were just a few folks that basically assigned themselves this duty and granted themselves the power to make decisions that affect the entire public education system negatively and beyond. While Christian, she is totally against the idea of bringing creationism in the schools as well and especially creationism replacing the science and history curriculum. Problematic is the history is already racist, but this is an added potential layer yet to come if these folks have anything to do with it.
My personal thoughts is that in Texas, as well as other states, the education system works hand in hand with the criminal justice system to keep society segregated and stratified by race and class. In Texas it seems as though this religious and racist backlash is due to the demographics of the state and this is a key strategy to preserve the white domination and power structure. The other side is the criminal justice system. Together the education system and criminal justice system work to either preserve or prevent the accumulation of cultural capital, nurture or suffocate the discovery and opportunities to maximize human potential, and so on. Together, through channeling and tracking people by race and SES to either the ivory towers or prison, or simply nowhere, they keep the society segregated and stratified.
One of the things I just wanted to quickly note though, is the lack of recognition the teachers who work outside the mainstream public schools down here receive. They are outstanding folks and help get those who drop out for what ever reasons either their high school diplomas or GED’s and tap them into the knowledge and resources on how to get into college or some other type of training tailored to their own interests and skills that helps them solidify their own long and short term goals. Applause for these folks.
On the note of drop outs…I wanted to share a bit of thinking that comes from a professor of education I have deep admiration and appreciation for–while relentlessly critical of the public school system, she argues the public school setting is not compatible with the learning styles of many students and they are not designed to the meet the needs of diverse populations. (they are set up for adult schedules, preferences, and doing whatever possible to bring in more funding…where ever that all goes…). This is particularly problematic for gifted students, many of whom, come from disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds–too often are misplaced directly into special education courses!! On top of tracking students by color and SES, they just train students to pass the standardized tests and do not teach in ways that promote learning for the sake of learning. The white student population benefits further because they are conditioned to largely operate on the reward system, which further promotes competition (extrinsic based). Students who don’t do well in this type of setting and cannot or will not learn with these standards and conditions (coupled with the embedded discriminatory practices and biases) often become underachievers, sometimes labeled as “trouble makers” and so forth. They are board, see no value in what they are doing (and they are seeing things for what they are), come to either drop out or finish but never pursue higher education or some other type of program/opportunities that could help them do something in life they would really enjoy. What these students lack is a stimulating learning environment that fosters enriching and positive learning materials, teaching and learning styles, and so forth. She feels that too many gifted children go completely unrecognized (and all children are gifted…for her) and we end up losing them and all of their otherwise potential valuable contributions they could have otherwise made to society when they are either tracked into dead end work or they drop out completely. She advocates taking these kids out of school and sending them straight over to get their GED’s and get them into college if possible, or some other type of program that will help stimulate and promote their own personal and intellectual growth. She emphasizes also, that the GED is not something that should be stigmatized as there is huge concerns on how many students who do graduate from high school and go straight into college, could even successfully complete the GED exam upon completion of high school.
Some of my thoughts on this one…but will close with the emphasis that these problems exist well beyond Texas…it’s just things seem or are amplified here since this seems to be the epicenter of these proposed changes coupled with its already problematic history that it boasts of without apology and so on.
I am unable to find it at the moment, but there is a private school somewhere in a northeastern state that does not do any testing, use tests, and allows the students to design their own curriculum. And the students decide when they wish to learn more about a subject, acquire or improve skills, and so on. They learn to read on their own time for example (for some it might begin in the early years for others, it might not be until the equivalent of the third or fourth grade for example). This private school has one of the highest graduation rates in the nation, with the graduating students pursuing college. There is another school in Colorado with a similar type program they’ve been working on.
Just wanted to note this because while it defies mainstream thinking on how education ought to be and ought to work, there are other ways that need to be explored and seriously considered if we are sincere in our desires for all children to have positive experiences in education, foster and nourish an appreciation and desire for intellectual growth (generate intrinsic motivation), and ideally have equal opportunities and social spaces available for discovering and maximizing the potentials of all students in positive ways that are beneficial to themselves, each other, and society.