Texas Vote Could Change Your Kid's View of America

The national debate over how to teach history is heating up in Texas, with the State Board of Education planning to hold a preliminary vote on history and social studies textbooks Tuesday afternoon.

Barbara Cargill, chair of the Texas State Board of Education, sits at the center of the debate that could shape how students view the United States and the world.

The daughter of a World War II veteran, she is fighting for a conservative, positive view of the country that focuses on its heroes.

"I grew up with stories about the wars and I knew the sacrifices that it had cost him and his friends," Cargill told CBN News about her father.

"I think sometimes our students tend to take for granted the freedom that we have, and I think that some of the things we're seeing worldwide right now show us that we can't take that for granted," she said.

Cargill said she wants to make sure that Texas social studies textbooks are fair and balanced and that they focus more on American exceptionalism than American struggles.

"We need to teach about America, warts and all - but not just the warts" she said.

If Cargill's view prevails, Texas social studies textbooks will emphasize a Judeo-Christian influence in the founding of our country, including a mention of Moses.

Cargill also wants more accurate information on Islam.

"In one of the textbooks the excerpt says that jihad means 'struggle.' And I think that our students need to learn that jihad means 'warfare to establish religion,'" she told CBN News.

But groups like the Texas Freedom Network prefer a more liberal view of the country, our founding, and Islam. They say conservatives exaggerate the Christian influence in our country's founding and downplay mainstream concepts like climate science.

The 15-member Texas Education Board will adopt social studies textbooks for all grades this week. They will appear in classrooms starting next Fall and be used for at least a half a dozen years if not longer.

For both sides, it's a fight worth having.

Five million children attend public school in Texas, making it the second-largest textbook market in the US. Those numbers motivate textbook publishers to conform to Texas standards.

At the end of the day, however, parents can have the final say. A state law gives Texas school boards the power to buy whatever books they want, which provides an opportunity for parents to have input at the local level.

It's why retired Lt. Col. Roy White, a former public school teacher, founded the Truth in Texas Textbooks Coalition. The organization has trained scores of volunteer reviewers to evaluate the host of textbooks that the state board is considering.

"The end result is to provide an Angie's List rating system for that family in Midland or Corpus," White explained.

"We hope that other states will follow the protocols, follow procedures, go through the training and then begin to add to this so we can begin to have a database for parents around the country to look up a Discovery textbook or look up a Pearson textbook," he said.

Such a ratings system could save parents time and point out the omissions, biases, and half-truths that can easily slip into children's school books.