In 2010 the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) approved controversial curriculum standards for social studies at all grade levels in the public education system. (The New York Times) These standards put textbook publishers in the difficult position of choosing between established scholarship, which would risk the rejection of their products by the SBOE, or conforming to the ideologically-driven curriculum standards in order to sell their materials.

It seems that many of them chose to compromise their standards and incorporate the misguided curriculum standards into their textbooks and supporting materials. The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) hired ten scholars in relevant fields to review the forty three proposed textbooks in history, geography, and government. [1] The full reports and a handy summary of the results from the TFN study can be found on their website (TFN). They found that many of the textbooks were misleading, inaccurate, and ideological. As one of the reviewers, Emile Lester, declared it is “[a] triumph of ideology over ideas.” However, they note that the problems in the textbooks “arise from the flawed and biased curriculum standards.” [2]

On November 21 the SBOE approved almost all of the social studies textbooks. But it is not all bad news. According to TFN, the biased depictions of Muslims, Affirmative Action, the Civil War, and climate science were corrected.

The bad news is that the misleading presentation of the role that Moses, and Christianity in general, played in the foundations of the US government remains in the textbooks. In his examination of seven textbooks, Emile Lester found that five “too often focused on controversial and vague claims backed by little or no discussion of evidence concerning the religious influences on the Founders.” [3] Here are some examples from the five problematic textbooks:

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