The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion

The Trouble with Textbooks co-author Dennis Ybarra is interviewed by Fox News in a one-hour documentary: "Do Your Know What Textbooks Your Children Are Really Reading?" broadcast September 4-6.

14-minute excerpt

Watch excerpts: 4 minutes
Watch the full program: 44 minutes

Over the past year, the Institute promoted the first ever exposé of anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in the K-12 textbooks most widely used in America’s schoolrooms. This shocking study, The Trouble with Textbooks, has substantially spurred and influenced the national debate about errors and bias in textbooks, particularly about religion. Recently, Fox News produced a documentary that analyzed all sides of the issue. This excerpt looks at the textbook publishing industry and examines how pressure groups make use of textbook adoptions in major states to push their agendas, especially when it comes to teaching about the history of the major religions.

The Textbook Industry
The industry suffers from systemic ills. Textbooks are assumed to contain only facts and truths, yet special interest groups successfully push their agendas in a variety of ways. History textbooks are a primary target. Publishers' reluctance to offend any group results in the dumbing down of textbook lessons to the lowest common denominator. The textbook industry is dominated by only three companies, making it easier for multiple product lines to be wrong. Textbooks are a big business, with $10 billion in annual industry sales.

The textbook customer is not the teacher, but often adoption committees such as in Texas and California, particularly Texas. Millions of dollars are at stake in every adoption in these major states. Mel and Norma Gabler founded Educational Research Analysts of Longview, Texas, one of the oldest pressure groups. Other organizations, of varying ideologies, have followed in their footsteps. [Note: In July 2009 California suspended its textbook adoption process until 2013.]

The Role of Islam in U.S. Public Schools
Muslims have disproportionate influence on public school curriculum and textbooks. The Council on Islamic Education and other Muslim organizations have successfully lobbied publishers and schools to improve the image of Islam and to present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only in terms of the Arab narrative.

Some examples of the problematic material in textbooks are:
• Any connection between Islam and terrorism is expunged.
• The concepts of jihad and sharia (Islamic law) have been removed.
• The three major monotheistic religions are not treated alike: Judaism and Christianity are qualified and critiqued while Muslim beliefs are taught as historical fact.
• One textbook teaches that Jesus was a Palestinian.