Whose history is being rewritten?

Published 4:31 pm Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Regarding the letters last week about school textbooks and the Texas board of education:

I find it interesting that the left is freaking out that conservatives are, in their words, “… rewriting history.”

These textbooks are written or re-written every 10 years. Who was influencing textbooks 10 years ago? Hmmmm. Yes, the more liberal-leaning fraction of society. And 10 years before that, and 10 years before that …

Obviously the left is freaking out because all that they “rewrote” 10 years ago or more is being examined and considered for change.

Take for example the paper written in 1999 by John Fonte, “This Prentice Hall ‘History’ Text Is Essentially a Propaganda Tract,” concerning the new textbook “America: Pathways to the Present” (www.textbookleague.org/101path.htm) Read it.

Not that Wikipedia is the best source, but a paragraph from its Web site really helps one to understand that history books are consistently a topic of controversy. (Go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbooks, then scroll down to K-12 textbooks, high school.) Read it.

Basically, both factions could be accused of being “… dictatorial and communist …” as the March 23 letter writer says toward Republicans. Both liberals and conservatives are interested in “fixing” history.

After reading what John Fonte wrote and remembering the controversy 10 years ago with textbooks at that time, in my opinion, the conservative view seems more … accurate.

Shelley Weyer

Everett