“It’s time for another attempt to whitewash the truth,” said Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. “There is no way that slavery can be called involuntary displacement and have the same meaning as real slavery.”
As our partners at the Texas Tribune first reported, it was an appointed task force for the Texas State Board of Education that made the proposal.
They were tasked with adding the subject of slavery to the second-grade curriculum where it is currently deficient, but the group was also working within the parameters of new Texas legislation, Senate Bill 3, under which slavery cannot be taught as the true foundation of the United Nations. States.
“I’m sure they were trying to work within the bounds of the law, but there’s something wrong with the law that would require someone to do it in the first place,” Anderson said.
The Texas State Board of Education has asked this task force to modify its proposal, board chair Kevin Ellis said in a statement: “At our last meeting, the task force provided the SBOE with a draft its recommendations and the Board had specific concerns with some of the proposed wording, in particular the phrase “involuntary resettlement.” The Board, with unanimous consent, asked the Working Group to review this specific wording.
The Texas Education Agency, which does not make curriculum recommendations, also said in part, “Any claim that the SBOE minimizes the role of slavery in American history is completely inaccurate.”
Anderson hopes sophomores will get a little more credit and a little more knowledge.
“I think kids are resilient and I think it’s better to teach them the truth,” she said.
The State Board of Education said it has the final say on any language drafts produced by the working groups.
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