People For, CREDO, Brave New Foundation Deliver Petitions Demanding Unbiased Textbooks

People
For the American Way Foundation, CREDO, and Brave New Foundation today
delivered over 131,000 petitions to the offices of McGraw-Hill in New
York,
urging the publisher to reject Texas' right-wing curriculum standards
and
publish textbooks free of political ideology or bias.

In adopting its latest
curriculum, the Texas Board of Education tossed aside recommendations of
historians and educational professionals in favor of an overtly
ideological
approach to history. Materials were added to support disgraced Senator
Joseph McCarthy and cast aspersions on the Civil Rights movement. Labor
and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta was removed from the curriculum,
while
conservative icons like Phyllis Schlafly, Newt Gingrich and the Heritage
Foundation were added. Because Texas is one of the largest textbook
markets in the country, its curriculum standards often are incorporated
into
textbooks distributed throughout the country.

Brave New Foundation's
Cuentame has created an online short about the Texas textbooks to
accompany the
petition.

To view the piece, please go
to: Cuentame

"The Texas State Board of
Education embarrassed itself and its state when it passed curriculum
standards
that so blatantly twist American history and values," said People For
the
American Way Foundation President Michael B. Keegan. "It's bad enough
that this
dishonest history will be taught to millions of Texas schoolchildren; it
cannot
be allowed to become the norm throughout the country. Textbook
publishers
should be in the business of education, not politics."

"Book publishers in
America have long been fierce defenders of the first amendment and the
freedom
to read," explained Becky Bond, Political Director of CREDO Action.
"We expect Macmillan to continue this proud tradition and refuse to
publish textbooks that are explicitly anti-science and mandate the
teaching of
a distorted view of U.S. history to our nation's school children."

"We need to urge
textbook publishers to refrain from being part of the conservatives'
revisionist agenda; it has no place in our public schools. Printing
these books
impacts other states too, due to the size of Texas and their purchasing
power.
We need to let teachers and educators decide what goes into our history
books,
and keep politics out of our children's education," said Axel Caballero
of
Brave New Foundation's Cuentame.

Delivering the petitions,
PFAW Foundation, CREDO and Brave New Foundation were joined by tenants
of
Kittay House, Jewish Home Lifecare's independent senior-living apartment
residence in the Bronx. Signatures from ninety-one Kittay seniors were
among
those delivered. Tenant Rhoda Kaufman says, "We are furious that the
Texas
Board of Education is attempting to re-write history. Even though we're
older,
our voices still count and hope that our participation in the petition
urges
the publishers to reject controversial standards."