Update on the Potential Boycott of Texas Textbook publishers

Current List of Texas Approved Publishers

This link will take people to the current list of social study publishers for Texas. These publishers are NOT as of yet part of the new standards but one can imaging the implications here. What a surprise????

For Grades 1-12 the Social Studies and History Texts are from the largest publishing companies, any wonders here???

Harcourt, MacMillan, Pearson; Holt, Rinehart and Winston; McGraw-Hill. One has to scroll down to find the actual textbook approved but these are the publishers approved as of now. However, these are NOT the ones approved for the new standards. As the standards are now yet to be approved in their final form later in the year. I will keep track of this

Also a new issue has arisen about this issue that publishers are trying to stay neutral. No surprise there. I have a quote below from a New York Times Article concerning the Texas issue. ""We now have the ability to deliver completely customized content" to different states, said Joseph Blumenfeld, spokesman for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, one of three major publishers that supply Texas with most of its social studies textbooks."

This could be both a blessing and a danger. Publishers for years have been able to provide "customized" textbooks. As one who has been an adjunct in the State of New York, I found that many Community Colleges in that state have customized texts. However, as long as the underlying structure of the content remains factually correct, this is not a problem. The issue at this point is merely what chatper(s) to include. For those who teach introductory courses this is an issue of time and of what to include and what to leave for higher level classes. If publishers start to use customization to "exclude" content that is objectionable, but not factually incorrect, then the issue becomes one of content. This is a problem. If a publisher states that they can just publish a book just for Texas and then a different one for others states for their "customized content," then issue is not solved. It becomes an issue of, dare I say it, censorship and exclusion.

If I, as a college teacher, taught US History I, an introductory class covering everything from 1492 to the War of the Rebellion and did not include slavery and its presence on the North American continent because I might be "uncomfortable" about the issue, I am withholding relevant information from students that they have a right to know. In the Texas case, withholding the knowledge that Thomas Jefferson was influenced by Enlightenment Thinkers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, is not a choice of convenience. It is altering the historical record. Jefferson got his phrase "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" from John Locke's notion of "Life, Liberty, and Property."

All this tells me is that Texas Board of Education members should start reading history before they start rewriting and censoring it.