Maybe it is an accident that this happened in Texas. In the meantime, we invite parents with any remaining questions or concerns to reach out to us directly at info@greatheartstx.org. It's still a cursory and watered down version of what happened, but this is a world geography textbook, intended to broadly describe the physical and cultural shape of the globe, so the treatment isn't as egregious as if this were a U.S. history text. The language escaped notice through several rounds of edits and then a lengthy public review until a bored ninth-grader in Pearland starts flipping ahead in his geography book. After four bloody years, the North triumphed. “[I]t’s no accident that this happened in Texas," the group's president, Kathy Miller, said in a statement. The left-leaning SBOE watchdog Texas Freedom Network took the opportunity to highlight the board's long history of failures. From now until the end of this school year, teachers will only be using primary sources like the US Constitution. US House representative Joaquin Castro of Texas tweeted his disbelief, calling the assignment “absolutely unacceptable.”, Upset parents complained to the school’s superintendent, Aaron Kindel, who launched an investigation into the incident, suspended the teacher who’d distributed the worksheet, and announced an audit of the textbook associated with the lesson. Staff, A little more than a year after the conservative-led state board of education in Texas approved massive changes to its school textbooks to put slavery in a more positive light, a group of Tea Party activists in Tennessee has renewed its push to whitewash school textbooks.

The Texas State Board of Education, the body that decides what millions of Texas schoolchildren should and shouldn't learn, is the frequent subject of ridicule, and rightly so, what with its penchant for pushing creationism into science curricula, identifying Moses as an architect of the U.S. Constitution, chalking up the Civil War to a battle over states' rights rather than slavery and otherwise shaping science and history in service of a right-wing, Christian-conservative agenda.

"We have a textbook adoption process that’s so politicized and so flawed that it’s become almost a punch line for comedians.

Popular blues artists at the time included Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.") Slavery was abolished after the war and the country began rebuilding. As the music spread its popularity grew, and by the 1950s teenagers all over the country began buying blues albums from artists they heard on the radio. Over the weekend, the board was hit with another barrage of criticism after Roni Dean-Burren, a Houston-area mom, complained on Facebook about the treatment of slavery in her 9th-grade son's world geography textbook:Two things jump out from Dean-Burris' post. He searched his head for a synonym — "workers!" In addition, although the book has not been recalled, the company says the passage in question is used internally as an example of how a subject such as slavery ought not to be explained. Two, her son's text — "we was real hard workers wasn't we" — is the best possible response.

This year, about … But while the homework assignment may have been an isolated event, students at Great Hearts charter schools have been using a textbook that wildly mischaracterizes slavery for roughly a decade.
Land was cleared for more plantations, and the labor of enslaved African Americans became critical to the Southern economy.

and not visually depicting slaves as irrationally happy, as the text does with this Mexican farmworker: OK, so the new geography textbooks maybe aren't the best. But wait! By clicking 'X' or continuing to use the site, you agree to allow cookies to be placed.

Here's an alternate explanation: Some McGraw-Hill employee tasked with writing captions decided, for stylistic reasons, that it sounded redundant to refer to "slaves" immediately after mentioning the "Atlantic Slave Trade." The textbook's publisher, McGraw-Hill, acknowledged the former point rather quickly, announcing in a Facebook post on Friday afternoon that it was changing the caption in the electronic edition of the textbook, as well as in future editions.

For Once.

After conducting a fair and thorough review we found that, while the assignment was certainly not consistent with Great Hearts philosophy, there was no harmful intent on the part of the teacher and the broader context of the treatment of slavery in the course left no ambiguity regarding its immorality.

Was slavery not a key contributor to the Civil War?
Jazz blended African rhythms with Europe harmonies"; "Along with the movement of people, this [Great Migration] spread African-American music styles, including jazz and blues, around country. Lastly, I will be hosting a series of coffee chats with parents and Great Hearts Leadership, including our co-founder Dr. Dan Scoggin.

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Dejah Behnke, the vice president of Great Hearts Texas, told Quartz that the school had used the book only occasionally. Join the Observer community and help support independent local journalism in Dallas. News for the next era, not just the next hour. Since 1917, when Texas law authorized the state board to purchase textbooks for all of its schools, a small group of people has held a great deal of … You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS: California Privacy Policy | California Collection Notice | Do Not Sell My Info. The chapter does a better job of emphasizing that African-Americans were really good musicians ("At the start of the 1900s, a distinct form of music known as jazz developed in African-American communities throughout the United States. Enjoy!

The report by the Southern Poverty Law Center gave low grades to a Texas textbook, saying it gives "lip service to slavery." These are questions scholars say are raised by social studies textbooks headed for Texas classrooms that …

And the subsequent discussion of slavery is identical, word for word, to Texas'.

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In a statement, Pearson distanced itself from the views expressed in the book, saying that it promoted an “antiquated viewpoint, which is wrong, offensive, and long outdated.” The publisher said also that the text has not been published or updated since 2007. These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects. Texas, for example, earned a reputation for inserting dubious information and interpretations about the nation’s creation, evolution, and slavery into its school books. In the past, Texas has exerted disproportionate influence on the content of textbooks because of the size of its market, but there's no evidence that McGraw-Hill inserted language the slaves-as-workers caption to placate Texas officials or adhere to the state's curriculum standards, which broadly require that texts "explain how political, economic, social, and environmental push and pull factors and physical geography affect the routes and flows of human migration." In the letter, the school calls the assignment “not consistent with Great Hearts philosophy,” but declines to take further action against the teacher.

"In more than a dozen places, there are mentions of enslaved Africans, the slave trade (since this is a geography book there are multiple references to this), the Underground Railway, slavery in the American South and enslavement."

At the same time, given Texas' well-documented trash-compactor textbook-adoption process, one can see how this one might be blamed on Texas. Changes to social studies textbooks in Texas proposed by conservatives have resulted in …

Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. But the worksheet’s request for a “balanced view” of slavery appears entirely in keeping with the textbook’s revisionist history.

pushing creationism into science curricula, Moses as an architect of the U.S. Constitution, chalking up the Civil War to a battle over states' rights rather than slavery, announcing in a Facebook post on Friday afternoon that it was changing the caption in the electronic edition of the textbook, as well as in future editions, The People Choosing Texas' Social Studies Texts Don't Know Enough about Social Studies, New Rule Aimed at Putting Actual Experts on Textbook Review Panels Passes State Board, Creationists' Last Stand at the State Board of Education, adhere to the state's curriculum standards. The entire Great Hearts team, both in the schools and the district office, is working hard to ensure the education you’ve come to expect remains intact.