Texas school leader tells teachers to 'balance' Holocaust books with opposing views

[Shadowy Man]

Why is Texas such a bigger textbook market than California?

 

[Jarhyn]

Why is Texas such a bigger textbook market than California?

My guess is that it has something to do with the school-child ratio. Texas is sprawling, and small schools with few children still need a certain number of textbooks.

This means that Texas, for their population, needs more textbooks, probably.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If you read to the end:

However, some are saying that the book guidelines at Carroll are misinterpreted. Three other Texas education policy experts agreed, according to NBC.

"We find it reprehensible for an educator to require a Holocaust denier to get equal treatment with the facts of history," said Clay Robison, a spokesman for the Texas State Teachers Association. "That's absurd. It's worse than absurd. And this law does not require it."

And what other positions exist that the school could use?

https://amorphia-apparel.com/teach

 

[Swammerdami]

Why is Texas such a bigger textbook market than California?

Is it?

IIRC the problem was just that Texas INSISTED on certain things (e.g. glorifying the Alamo, even though that whole episode was a silly stunt by Americans sad that Mexico didn't allow slavery).

Rightly or wrongly states like California went along rather than insisting that publishers produce, at added cost, more rational fact-based textbooks.

 

[BH]

I have a hispanic friend who took a university level course on Texas history who started calling the Alamo the Assholeamo. I thought hilarious. He said when you learned about the past and probable intentions of people like Bowie, ect it was a collection of assholes.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Why is Texas such a bigger textbook market than California?

Texas population: 29 million

California population: 40 million

TX had Mel and Norma Gabler, a conservative religious couple who started monitoring textbooks in the 60s, crying out when they detected anti-Americanism. They largely called the shots in textbook purchases in the state. (They probably lost their minds when a commie like Oswald had a job in the Texas Schoolbook Depository.) So, yes, they determined a lot of editorial decisions at publishing houses who could not afford Special Lonestar Editions.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Why is Texas such a bigger textbook market than California?

Is it?

IIRC the problem was just that Texas INSISTED on certain things (e.g. glorifying the Alamo, even though that whole episode was a silly stunt by Americans sad that Mexico didn't allow slavery).

Rightly or wrongly states like California went along rather than insisting that publishers produce, at added cost, more rational fact-based textbooks.

That could be it. But it just seems that if Californians disagreed they could have as much or more leverage than Texas.

 

[TomC]

Is the opposing perspective that the Holocaust never happened, or that there were benefits resulting from it?

This is kinda my question. What does "opposing" mean in that sentence?
Despite the protestations of a few loonies, the evidence is massive. The Nazis kept records by the crateful. Apparently, they were confident that they would win the war.

Perhaps what would qualify as "opposing" might be the general perception that it was just Jewish people getting offed. They were ~60%, the rest were all kinds of people. Gays, Communists, Gypsies, disabled, black...
Tom

 

[Shadowy Man]

Maybe the opposing view is that the Jews killed 6 million nazis.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Texas mandates that school districts in Texas choose textbooks from a small list of possible choices. State wide. This means text book companies have to create text books that the conservatives will choose or allow in Texas. Since text book companies do not wish to have to publish a wide variety of textbooks, essentially Texas being a big market, had its favored textbooks being available for many smaller text book markets, like it or not. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

 

[zorq]

Texas mandates that school districts in Texas choose textbooks from a small list of possible choices. State wide. This means text book companies have to create text books that the conservatives will choose or allow in Texas. Since text book companies do not wish to have to publish a wide variety of textbooks, essentially Texas being a big market, had its favored textbooks being available for many smaller text book markets, like it or not. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Right, If I recall correctly, most book orders throughout the rest of the country are ordered by individual districts, but Texas has some sort of regulatory body that chooses the curriculum and approved books for the entire state making the state of Texas a huge fish. The largest school district in the US is the New York city school district with nearly 1 million students in 2019. The second largest is the Los Angeles School district with 630,000 students. But these markets pale in comparison to the Texas school district with 4.8 million students. That's why they have so much influence among textbook publishers.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Texas mandates that school districts in Texas choose textbooks from a small list of possible choices. State wide. This means text book companies have to create text books that the conservatives will choose or allow in Texas. Since text book companies do not wish to have to publish a wide variety of textbooks, essentially Texas being a big market, had its favored textbooks being available for many smaller text book markets, like it or not. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Right, If I recall correctly, most book orders throughout the rest of the country are ordered by individual districts, but Texas has some sort of regulatory body that chooses the curriculum and approved books for the entire state making the state of Texas a huge fish. The largest school district in the US is the New York city school district with nearly 1 million students in 2019. The second largest is the Los Angeles School district with 630,000 students. But these markets pale in comparison to the Texas school district with 4.8 million students. That's why they have so much influence among textbook publishers.

Does Texas have only one school district? There are other school districts in California than LAUSD. I would think that on a state-to-state comparison California would be comparable to Texas, not paling in comparison.

 

[zorq]

Texas mandates that school districts in Texas choose textbooks from a small list of possible choices. State wide. This means text book companies have to create text books that the conservatives will choose or allow in Texas. Since text book companies do not wish to have to publish a wide variety of textbooks, essentially Texas being a big market, had its favored textbooks being available for many smaller text book markets, like it or not. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Right, If I recall correctly, most book orders throughout the rest of the country are ordered by individual districts, but Texas has some sort of regulatory body that chooses the curriculum and approved books for the entire state making the state of Texas a huge fish. The largest school district in the US is the New York city school district with nearly 1 million students in 2019. The second largest is the Los Angeles School district with 630,000 students. But these markets pale in comparison to the Texas school district with 4.8 million students. That's why they have so much influence among textbook publishers.

Does Texas have only one school district? There are other school districts in California than LAUSD. I would think that on a state-to-state comparison California would be comparable to Texas, not paling in comparison.

I misspoke. Texas has different school districts, but as opposed to most other states they are all required to purchase books chosen by the Texas State Board of Education. The result is that with respect to textbooks, Texas might as well only have one school district.

Of course it wouldn't matter all that much except for the fact that the Texas board of Education was taken over by several competing political and religious activists who inject their personal (subjective) beliefs into the curriculum. This means that for decades several textbook publishers have been censoring and revising science and history in their textbooks so as to meet the requirements of the Texas school board. But a lot of other smaller school districts throughout the country, including ones in California, buy these textbooks too either because they are too distracted to notice the difference or their own politics aligns with the Texas school board.