More on the History/Social Science Framework.
June 1, 2010
Senator Darrell Steinberg,
California State Senate
Dear Senator Steinberg,
As a constituent, I am writing to urge you to use your authority and leadership to pass S.B. 1278 through the Senate. This legislation, sponsored by Senator Wyland, seeks to revitalize the history/social science curriculum framework revision process which I participated in and which was stopped by the budget crisis last year when a concern about the cost of new textbooks . This remains an important issue concerning what California students will study and what they will not study in our schools. I look forward to your response to this request.
During the winter and spring of 2009, a committee of educators appointed by the State Board of Education met in staffed working sessions to review the current History-Social Science Curriculum Framework and Evaluation Criteria and to recommend revisions to the document. The committee met in a series of two-day public sessions which were well attended by professionals and civic advocates concerned about the content of history and social studies education in California. I and others gave testimony. My own effort, and that of my colleagues, was to focus on the failure of the current framework to adequately describe the history and contributions of the Mexican American people to California history.
The current Framework was written in 1986 and published in 1987 after a great deal of controversy. The Framework is supposed to be revised each 7 years. The Framework, along with the standards, provides the guidelines for what is to be taught and what is to be included in the history and social science textbooks in California. In 2009, the History /Social Science Framework was up for re consideration but the process was halted by the budget crisis.
The 1987 Framework still in use in our schools today expanded African American, Native American, and women’s history coverage but remains totally inadequate in the coverage of Latinos and Asians. The only significant change between the 1985 and the 2005 adopted Framework was the addition of a new cover, a cover letter, and additions of photos such as of Cesar Chavez . Latinos currently make up 48.1 percent of students in California schools.
As you are well aware from your work on the Sacramento Unity Center, when the 48.1 % of students who are Latino , and the 11.5 % who are Asian do not see themselves as part of history, for many students their sense of self is marginalized. Marginalization negatively impacts their connections with school and their success at school. It contributes to an over 50% drop out rate for Latinos and some Asian students. This crisis level drop out rate has remained essentially constant for the last thirty years. An accurate history would provide some students with a a sense of self, of direction, of purpose. History and social science classes should help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives. Instead, the current history textbooks tell an inadequate and unrepresentative version of what happened here in the Southwest. And they tell the students that their lives do not matter.
The framework committee invested a tremendous amount of effort and time and was respectful of and responsive to those of us who also took the time to work with this curriculum revision process. They were also careful to incorporate into their recommendations for the framework revision the priorities adopted by the California Legislature since the last framework review including matters relating to Mexican American and Hmong history.
In the summer of 2009, after the framework committee had met over a five month period of time and developed a comprehensive set of recommendations for revisions to the history/social science framework. However, the California Legislature was under pressure from budget issues and determined that school districts, already strapped for funds should not be required to adopt any new text book series. Language in the budget bill relieving school districts of the obligation to adopt new textbooks during the financial crisis led the Governor in his budget to veto the funds to complete the framework review process through public comment and final adoption. While the concern that financially strapped school districts not be required to adopt new textbooks is certainly understandable, it was not a necessary to stop the entire framework revision process.
In the contemporary world of history, social science and civic education, there are a wealth of well-designed, standards-based curricular materials available online or from public and civic organizations which can address quite creatively and comprehensively the areas of the framework which have been proposed for revision. Many materials are available online and without charge.
I urge you, in your position as President pro Tem of the California Senate to use the authority of your office to secure passage of SB 1278 in the Senate and to work with your colleagues in the Assembly to assure that this legislation is enacted by the Legislature and sent to the Governor. As the bill has been amended, it is now separate and distinct from any textbook adoption requirements. The legislation seeks only to continue the public comment, review and adoption process for these important framework revisions so that history and social studies education in California can retain its cutting edge and contemporary relevance.
Thank you for all that you do,
Dr. Duane E. Campbell, Professor (emeritus) California State University Sacramento
Director, Institute on Democracy and Education.- Sacramento. .Author. Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition. 2010.
UPdate. SB 1278 passed the California Senate.
Writing the California Framework for History and Social Sciences,
California has the largest population of any state, with more than 6,286,000 students in school in 2006 California students make up more than 11 percent of the United States total. California, along with some 16 other states, adopts textbooks for the entire state instead of district by district. This makes the California adoption the largest single textbook sale in the nation. Succeeding in this market is an important goal for textbook publishers. Many publishers write and edit their books in a targeted attempt to win control of the large and lucrative California and Texas markets. Publishers promote and try to sell books developed in California and Texas throughout the nation in an effort to increase their profits.
The election of 1982 began 16 years of conservative, Republican control of the California governorship. Governors appoint the members of the State Board of Education. The conservative control changed the history–social science, language, and reading curricula and textbooks for the state, and influenced textbook decisions throughout the United States.
The 1987 draft of the History-Social Science Framework (a guide for teachers and textbook selection still in use today ) excluded an accurate history of Latino and Native American settlement of the Southwest and did not cover the substantial Asian history in the West (see Almaguer, 1994). By electing to concentrate on a melting pot, consensus point of view, the History-Social Science Framework assumed that telling the history of European immigrants adequately explained the experiences of Mexicans, Native Americans, and Asians.
The Framework does not describe the displacement and destruction of Native American, Mexican, and Mexican American communities from 1850 to 1930 throughout the Southwest, including in Los Angeles and San Diego. The authors—among them, educational historian Diane Ravitch—failed to note that the present mosaic of Southwest culture was created by the subjugation and domination of previously existing groups, both Native American and Mexican American. This California document won the praise of conservative school advocates around the nation. Honig and Ravitch and numerous funded advocacy organizations such as the Brookings Institute cited it in their writings and speeches as a positive example of the kind of multiculturalism they supported.
In California, committees and the State Board of Education select texbooks for all the students in public schools grades k-8. The U.S. history books submitted for the 1990 California adoption, and readopted in 1998 and 2005, were required to be based on the Framework . The 1987- 2005 document expanded African American, Native American, and women’s history coverage but were totally inadequate in their coverage of Latinos and Asians—both significant population groups in the development of history of the West. The only significant change between the 1985 and the 2005 adopted Framework was the addition of a new cover, a cover letter, and a photo of Cesar Chavez. Latinos make up 48.1 percent of California’s student population and Asians make up 8.1 %. The treatment in seventh- and eighth-grade texts of the history and cultures of Africa and the U.S. slave system was promptly challenged by members of the African American community (King, 1992). The history of African Americans was presented as if it was not central to understanding U.S. history. (For a detailed analysis of this curriculum conflict, see Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995. For an opposing view, see Gitlin, 1995.)
The conservatively defined History-Social Science framework became the controlling conceptual framework for the California History-Social Science Standards of 2000 and the basis for the selection of textbooks until the present day.
From: Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. Duane Campbell. 4th. ed. 2010. Allyn and Bacon.