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FOX News - Who Decides What's In Your Kids' Textbooks?
March 8, 2010 FOX News
HOST: We begin a new series tonight about your child's school textbooks and the struggle of wills over what is in them. It turns out ground zero for that battle is the state of Texas. Correspondent Shannon Bream has part one of the Texas Textbook Wars.
Watch the report here.
Transcript of the report:
Shannon Bream: What happens in Texas is likely to impact your child's textbooks no matter where you live. That's because the Lone Star state is one of the top textbook buyers in the world. So most publishers write to Texas curriculum standards and the books are sold nationwide.
This week the Texas State Board of Education will be hammering out social studies curriculum and stirring up plenty of controversy.
Barry Lynn, Americans United for Separation of Church and State:
The culture war has regrettably not ended. And one of the biggest and most important fronts now are curriculum battles in Texas and indeed around the country. Because the next generation of young people need to understand good science, good history, comprehensive sex education.
Shannon Bream: But as 15 elected board members prepare to make those decisions in Texas this week, conservatives say there are organized liberal groups in these textbook fights who want to sanitize our country's history.
Jay Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice:
Our Founders acknowledged their reliance upon Divine Providence that we are endowed by our Creator with these inalienable rights and this idea that now you remove that it as if it is does not exist - I think it shows - it really goes to the depths of what these groups are trying to get at and that is to expunge any reference to America's religious heritage.
Shannon Bream: It's an issue parents around the country say they see popping up in classroom decisions with increasing frequency.
Vivian Scretchen, parent: One day my son came home with an assignment - it was around Christmas - and they had to make holiday cards and they couldn't say 'Christmas.'
Shannon Bream: But other parents believe religious discussions aren't suited to secular classrooms.
Jane Miller, parent. Public schools don't need to place this in their curriculum because it is potentially offensive to some and it isn't what a public school should be teaching.
Shannon Bream: The Texas board has already has had showdowns over whether to get rid of mentions of Christmas - the Liberty Bell - even Neil Armstrong. Some of that debate continues but the backlash was so bad when the public got wind of the 'Christmas' issue, that the board quickly voted to save it. In Washington, Shannon Bream, FOX News.
Shannon Bream's Posting to FOX News, March 8, 2010
This week in Texas, the State Board of Education (SBOE) will consider curriculum modifications that could impact millions of students across America. That's because what Texas ultimately decides has great influence among textbook publishers. The Lone Star state is one of their biggest customers in the world, so publishers craft their books to meet Texas standards. Those books are then sold nationwide. While the Texas SBOE debates whether to include things like Christmas, Paul Revere and the Liberty Bell - some are calling the textbook showdown the newest frontline of the culture war in the U.S.
It's a battle Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, is watching closely, "Well, if you grab the minds of the young people you grab the minds of the next generation." Sekulow believes a child's school board meeting is the most important governmental event a parent can plug into. "Parents don't check their rights to raise their children at the door to the schoolhouse," Sekulow cautions. He knows the stakes are high this week in Texas because, "This curriculum, once established, will affect a generation of students - how they think."
Others are concerned that conservative, religious interests are attempting to stuff Texas textbooks full of their viewpoint. "There is a whole movement to convince Americans that this was founded as a Christian nation, and that's simply not the case," says Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Lynn also worries, as others do, that elected board members - and not educators - are the ones making the final curriculum decisions. "The idea of electing people to make judgments about these topics, which frankly they often know nothing about, is a terrible idea," Lynn says.
Gilbert T. Sewall, Director of the American Textbook Council, says elected officials are often impacted by what he calls the "squeakiest wheel" - regardless of their ideology. "I think there's no doubt that identity politics have contributed to the decline of textbook quality over the last 20 years," Sewall laments. He says groups from nutritionists to gender activists have demanded their way into textbooks, but points to the one as the most prominent, "The most visible groups are the Christian right that wants to use American history textbooks to recapture the soul of the nation."
Conservatives, like attorney Jonathan Saenz of the Liberty Institute, say they don't mind being singled out and that it works to their benefit when liberal groups take to the Board of Education to take on subjects like Christmas and the Liberty Bell. According to Saenz, "The louder they shout the more they end up really equipping and informing people that agree with keeping things conservative and traditional."

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American Center for Law and Justice is a d/b/a for Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, Inc., a tax-exempt, not-for-profit, religious corporation as defined under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, specifically dedicated to the ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights. The Center's purpose is to educate, promulgate, conciliate, and where necessary, litigate, to ensure that those rights are protected under the law. The organization has participated in numerous cases before the Supreme Court, Federal Court of Appeals, Federal District Courts, and various state courts regarding freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Your gift is very much appreciated and fully deductible as a charitable contribution. A copy of our latest financial report may be obtained by writing to us at P.O. Box 450349, Atlanta, GA 31145-0349.