This school year thousands of Texas students will be using Social Studies textbooks that whitewash history in such a way that the KKK and Jim Crow are glossed over, while slavery is downplayed and the Civil War is being portrayed as being more about sectionalism and states’ rights than slavery.
The change stands to have a significant impact as Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the United States, behind California, purchasing around 48 million textbooks each year. The state has an estimated 5 million public school students
The new textbooks comes some five years after the state board of education voted in 2010 to revise its social studies curriculum in an effort to balance academia. Don Leroy, who leads the conservative faction of the board, stated that the board was “adding balance. History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left.”
The textbooks rewrite history, whitewashing to the extent that the slave trade is referred to as the “Atlantic triangular trade.” Republican school board member Pat Hardy has previously stated that he considered slavery “a side issue,” in the Civil War. Hardy has not offered any recent comment on the new textbooks or curriculum.
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