State Board of Education Considers Islam in Textbooks

State Board of Ed Considers Islam in Textbooks [Excerpts]

The [Texas] State Board of Education plans to vote next week on a resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books.

The resolution cites world history books no longer used in Texas schools that it says devoted more lines of text to Islamic beliefs and practices than Christian beliefs and practices.

"Diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts," reads a preliminary draft of the resolution, which would not be binding on future boards that will choose the state's next generation of social studies texts.

The measure was first suggested to the board this summer by Odessa businessman Randy Rives, who lost his Republican primary bid for a seat on the panel earlier this year. Members of a social conservative bloc of the board then asked chairwoman Gail Lowe to put the resolution on next week's agenda.

Board member Pat Hardy, R-Fort Worth, suggested the issue may be moot because none of the books cited by Rives still are being used in Texas, having been replaced in 2003, and said Rives "might want to go back and get newer copies of the books."

Don McLeroy, who is serving the final months of his term after also losing in the GOP primary, said he believes even current textbooks still reflect an anti-Christian bias.

"The biggest problem I saw was their overreach not to be 'ethnocentric,'" McLeroy said of an Advanced Placement world history book approved in 2003 and still in use. "It's a very, very,very, very biased book. Christianity didn't even make it in the table of contents."

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/state-board-of-ed-considers-islam-in-textbooks-916828.html

(AP, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2010).