A baffling, error-filled attempt to rewrite Mexican-American history doesn’t meet state public education requirements in Texas and is unlikely to get adopted by the school system.
The Texas State Board of Education rejected the book, Mexican American Heritage, in a 14-0 preliminary vote on Wednesday. The text awaits a final determination on Friday, but without a single champion on the Republican-dominated SBOE, it seems unlikely to pass.
“This marks a new chapter,” Tony Diaz, a Mexican-American studies professor and ethnic studies advocate, wrote in a message to The Huffington Post, “where leaders, community, educators, writers, activists, parents and students unite to deliver the American Dream through education.”
The textbook submission had alarmed educators and activists who’d pressed the SBOE for years to adopt ethnic studies more widely in the state’s majority-Hispanic school system, arguing that such curricula had been shown to improve engagement with students of color.
In a 2014 decision, the SBOE declined to institutionalize Mexican-American studies as a college-level elective. The board said, however, that local districts were welcome to institute such classes on their own, and invited a call for supplemental textbooks.
The only publisher to take them up was an outfit called…..
To read full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-mexican-american-history-textbook_us_582caf9de4b058ce7aa8bdc3?section=us_latino-voices
