Is teaching history about presenting our students with role models? You get the impression that’s the viewpoint of some members of our State Board of Education, which may vote today on social studies standards for Texas schools.
To read the Texas Tribune’s account of the debate over which historical figures elementary- and middle-school students should learn about, some board members seem reluctant to add anyone whose viewpoints they consider contrary to American values:
After a controversy much earlier this year, board members had earlier made clear labor leader Cesar Chavez would be included in the standards. Yet Wednesday night, the board booted Dolores Huerta, the woman who, with Chavez, co-founded the United Farm Workers. The reason?“She’s a member of the Democratic Socialist Party of America,” said board member Geraldine Miller. “I don’t think she should be in a list of people exemplifying good citizenship, like Helen Keller and Clara Barton.” (Miller apparently did not realize Helen Keller was an outspoken socialist.)
And speaking of how tricky it is to define “American values,” let’s consider Thomas Paine.
Paine’s inclusion was also debated by the board. One member ranked him among the Founding Fathers. Another said he hadn’t done much for the cause and ended up skipping the country.  The transplanted Englishman wrote Common Sense in 1776. It was a bestseller and did much to popularize the idea that America must declare its independence from Great Britain. He was also an anti-Semite and his seminal work calls monarchy, “one of the sins of the Jews.”
Does he belong in “a list of people exemplifying good citizenship?” Probably not. But is that the question board members should be asking themselves?
UPDATE: The board’s vote was delayed until March.
