NEW YORK, NEW YORK, February 16, 2006: HPI Note: The American Textbook Council was formed to evaluate social studies and history books used in American schools. This particular report is on California textbooks, but does not address the issue of Hinduism. Rather, it is a wide-ranging and informative critique of the books under consideration now by California, about which Hindus have raised a number of complaints.
The report begins: “The California State Board of Education met in November 2005 and approved all history textbooks that major publishers submitted to the state. The approval of some shockingly deficient U.S. and world history textbooks indicates that all qualitative impulses in Sacramento have been subordinated to the power of publisher interests and aggressive pressure groups. No longer can educational reformers even hope that states like California and Texas will use their power to force publishers to produce books of high standard. More so, what California has done will determine what students nationwide read about the past for years to come. What California adopts today will be sold across the nation tomorrow.”
The Council also issued a report in 2003 critical of the textbook’s presentation of Islam, here.