Dan Walters: Dictating sanitized history in the classroom a very slippery slope

Story appeared on Page A3 of The Bee During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, romantic novels of ranching life in California were a popular form of fiction that gave other Americans an image of the still-remote state.

Helen Hunt Jackson's "Ramona" and Harold Bell Wright's "The Winning of Barbara Worth" typified the genre.

Last week, colorfully dressed actors from the Ramona Pageant, a play adapted from Jackson's novel and staged in Hemet for the past 83 years, visited the Capitol to promote this year's version. And since politicians of all stripes love feel-good events, the actors were received warmly.

As it happened, as the Ramona Pageant actors were visiting the Capitol, a bill was pending on the Senate floor that raises this question: Should California schoolchildren be indoctrinated with one-sided, feel-good versions of the state's extremely complex history?

One by one, California's many ethnic and cultural communities have sought legislation that requires schoolchildren to be taught about their "role and contributions" in the state's history, and also bans instruction that depicts them negatively.

To date the list singled out for mandatory attention are "men and women, black Americans, American Indians, Mexicans, Asians, Pacific Island people and other ethnic groups" while another section of state school law bans instruction "which reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin or ancestry" and still another prohibits textbooks or other materials "reflecting adversely" on the same grounds.

Essentially, therefore, students must be told about certain groups, but cannot receive any instruction deemed to be negative, which is why, for instance, the Hindu American Foundation is now suing the state to block printing and distribution of new sixth-grade textbooks that are, the group maintains, demeaning to Hindus. Specifically, the foundation doesn't like the textbooks' depiction of women's historically inferior status, the treatment of "untouchables" in the Indian caste system and the theory that Aryan migration played a major role in Indian cultural development.

Implicitly, the suit is telling state officials that the textbooks must be altered to reflect the Hindu American Foundation's version of the ethnic group's history - regardless of what that history may truly be.

It's certainly not the first time that the classroom depiction of ethnic or cultural subgroups has become controversial, and it will not be the last, especially if a bill pending on the Senate floor, Senate Bill 1437, becomes law.

The measure, carried by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, would add "people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender" to the list of cultural subgroups about which California's school children must be instructed and also add "sexual orientation" to the lists of those about which nothing that "reflects adversely" will be tolerated.

Not surprisingly, the measure has touched off still another front in the never-ending war between gay rights advocates and the self-named "pro-family" organizations - a diversion, of sorts, from their battle over gay marriage. Stripped to its essentials, the legislation would require homosexuality to be depicted positively in the classroom, and that grates on those who see it as an aberrant lifestyle.

The Legislature's dictating cultural propaganda of any kind to be distributed in the classroom is troubling. It's troubling when the cultural identification is homosexuality, and it's troubling when - as another legislative bill this year would require - the group singled out for special attention is Italian American.

History is history. Some of it is positive and some of it is negative, human imperfection being what it is. But the negative aspects are just as important as the positive ones. Together, they comprise the entire story of how a society develops. We should want our children to emerge from the classroom with the full story written by fair-minded and authoritative historians, not one that has been officially sanitized and litigated to please those with enough political pull to get the law changed in their favor.

It's a slippery slope, down which California probably has slid too far already.

About the writer:

* Reach Dan Walters at (916) 321-1195 or dwalters@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/walters Read the Source

Pray Against Hateful Threats . . .

Latino officials receive threats
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decried Monday a recent spate of "disturbing and hateful death threats" that he said have been made against Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other Mexican American elected officials in the state. "Pray the News"

Bush touts energy plans on Earth Day

With a hydrogen fuel cell car in the background, President Bush talks about reducing dependence on oil.

By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Bush used the Earth Day holiday on Saturday to tout energy reforms including hybrid vehicles and investment in ethanol, one day after oil prices reached a new record high.

In his weekly radio address, Bush laid out plans for improving hybrid cars and trucks. He said the U.S. is funding research into hybrids that can be recharged in electrical outlets.

"By developing these and other new sources of clean renewable energy like ethanol, we will continue growing our economy, reduce energy prices and protect our environment, and make America less dependent on foreign oil," Bush said. An advance copy of his radio remarks was distributed to reporters.

Bush and other world leaders are facing record-high oil prices. On Friday, crude futures closed above $75 a barrel for the first time in New York trading, marking a gain of more than 6% for the week. Tight U.S. gasoline supplies, worries about Iran's nuclear ambitions and violence in oil-rich Nigeria fueled the uptick in crude prices. See full story. Read Full Story. Read, but "Pray the News". . .

What's the Balance on Immigration?

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Marriage In The City . . .

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty and the author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World.

by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Senior Fellow in Economics

Marriage and family are taking a beating these days. Yet getting married and having kids continues to be an important goal for most people. What makes this goal so elusive? Quite apart from all the ideological and cultural forces that work against life-long married love, economic factors conspire to make household formation more expensive than it needs to be. And that in turn, makes it unnecessarily difficult for the young to live up to Christian standards of saving sex for marriage.

One of the contributing factors to delayed marriage is the high cost of setting up an independent household. The biggest expenses for young people are taxes, student loans, and housing. And if you stop and think about it, each one of these expenses can be influenced by public policies.

For instance, the price of housing is greatly influenced by zoning and environmental regulations. A recent article in the Journal of Law and Economics accounts for why housing prices in Manhattan are so high. Read Whole Story & "Pray the News"