« Libs Claim Kids Wrote "Children's Bill of Rights" | Main | Muslim Gangs Shoot Up Norwegian Waterfront »

August 21, 2006

P.C. Bean-Counters Distort School Textbooks

The quest for "diversity" — i.e., political correctness — is resulting in school textbooks that are becoming increasingly surreal in their rejection of reality in favor of the imaginary world the liberal elite would like us to think we live in.

To avoid trouble with educrats, publishers set quotas for how many minorities and handicappers must appear in their books. According to New York University professor Diane Ravitch:

There's more textbook space devoted to photos, illustrations and graphics than there's ever been, but frequently they have nothing to do with the lesson. They're just there for political reasons, to show diversity and meet a quota of the right number of women, minorities and the disabled.

Race-obsessed bean-counters often bleat that they're only trying to stay true to actual proportions. But in 2004, non-Hispanic whites accounted for 67.4% of the U.S. population, 59.9% among school-age kids. The quotas don't reflect this.

Here are McGraw-Hill's allocations:

• 40% white
• 30% Hispanic
• 20% black
• 7% Asian
• 3% American Indian

Reed Elsevier's Harcourt Education is a little easier on the white folks:

• 50% white
• 22% black
• 20% Hispanic
• 5% Asian
• 5% American Indian

At Harcourt, 3% have to be disabled. Others apparently have quotas for this too. Wheelchairs are kept on hand for props. Photographer Angela Coppola estimates that at least three quarters of the ostensibly disabled children in Houghton Mifflin textbooks are faking it. Using phonies has its benefits — real handicappers aren't easy to find at modeling agencies, and can be a problem logistically. Besides, they often have conditions like cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy that can make them less pleasant to look at.

It's not enough just to satisfy the bean-counters with numbers. Groups must be presented appropriately. According to McGraw-Hill's 2004 guidelines, Asians are not be seen "with glasses, bowl-shaped haircuts, or as intellectuals"; blacks must be "in positions of power, not just in service industries." An older McGraw-Hill manual forbids showing Asians as waiters, laundry owners, or math students. Mexicans aren't to be portrayed wearing ponchos or wide-brimmed hats — or drinking tequila, presumably. Blacks must not be portrayed in "crowded tenements on chaotic streets" or even in "innocuous, dull, white picket fence neighborhoods," for they must be shown to reside in "all neighborhoods, including luxury apartments."

Specific pictures that don't comply with these standards get deep-sixed, included one which was incorrect enough to show a barefoot child in an African village. Evidently we're supposed to pretend that African villagers bounce around in Nikes.

Not only illustrations, but actual content is affected. The McGraw-Hill 2002 textbook "The American Republic Since 1877" includes a profile and photo of the first African-American woman pilot, but doesn't get around to mentioning the Wright brothers.

Of course, anything that might offend Muslims must go, including a picture of a pig walking down a street that was banished from the cover of a Pearson Education first-grade reader in 2005.

Given their nearly absolute control of publishing and education, moonbats can be expected to continue constructing an alternate world that is more to their liking. Someday kids may learn that "Native Americans" (as opposed to natives of America) invented the airplane and that Lance Armstrong was paraplegic when he won the Tour de France. Needless to say, public education is to be avoided at all costs.

On a tip from Varla.

Posted by Van Helsing at August 21, 2006 2:16 PM

Comments

Posted by: rightwingprof at August 21, 2006 3:15 PM

Posted by: Steve at August 21, 2006 3:16 PM

Posted by: nikko at August 21, 2006 3:59 PM

Posted by: phil at August 27, 2006 12:39 PM

Posted by: BDM at August 30, 2006 10:47 AM