August 25, 1996

National History Standards Flawed By Political Spin

Having more than passing interests in politics and history, let me update you on the continuing controversy about National Standards For History which combine the two.

Regular readers of this space may recall my occasional thunders since 1991 over attempts by liberal educators to revise history with "politically correct" spin.

Ironically, the project began during President George Bush's administration. Surveys revealed that high school students couldn't identify George Washington, the principal issue of the American Revolution, who invented electric lights, or even who was buried in Grant's tomb.

Bush directed Lynne V. Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, to see if her department could do something to educate young Americans about their historical legacy.

The NEH subsequently awarded a $1 million contract to the University of California at Los Angeles to develop national standards for what students at all levels should know about history.

Of course, it was poor judgment to involve the nutcakes of UCLA in something so subjective as education and history -- a decision Cheney has since decried many times.

Release of proposed standards in 1994 brought down the wrath of everyone concerned about the problem -- except hard core, well-tenured, liberal college professors.

Cheney denounced the recommendations as "an intellectual shell game" emphasizing America's shortcomings. She was particularly incensed over standards for fifth and sixth graders about the end of World War II.

Students were encouraged to read a book about a Japanese girl who died a painful death as a result of radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

No mention was made about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bataan death march, or rape of Nanking. There was no recognition of the larger number of deaths -- American and Japanese -- that undoubtedly would have occurred in an invasion of the Japanese homeland.

The U.S. Constitution was criticized for alluding to "We, the people," instead of "We, the peoples." The Ku Klux Klan and Sen. Joseph McCarthy were denigrated dozens of times each while Lincoln received two lines of type.

U.S. Senators censured the standards by a 99-1 vote.

At last Fall's national education summit in Palisades, N.Y., governors killed the standards and vowed to craft their own.

Universal condemnation prompted the UCLA pedagogues to clean up their most outrageous interpretations and pejorative language.

Sen. McCarthy and the Ku Klux Klan were whittled down to three or four references each. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were accorded a major standard. A new standard is devoted to the roles of science and technology in revolutionizing American life.

The revised standards -- which once castigated American for slavery -- now refer to slavery practiced by other nations, and by Africans who delivered slaves to the Atlantic Passage. Today's Sudanese traffic in black slaves is ignored.

The U.S. westward movement -- previously attributed to greed and rapacity of "restless, white Americans" -- is now acknowledged to have been motivated also by "optimism that anything was possible with imagination, hard work and maximum freedom of individuals."

Implications that the United States was responsible for the Cold War now is correctly related to the "messianic nature of Soviet communism, Stalin's collectivization of agriculture, and the great purges of the 1930s."

Gone are the teaching examples calling students to discuss House Speaker Tip O'Neil's statement that "Ronald Reagan was the cheerleader for selfishness."

Praising the revised standards in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece are Diane Ravitch, education historian at New York University, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., professor emeritus of City University of New York and author of President John F. Kennedy's biography.

They are not wholly objective when it comes to liberal ideology, thus their call for former critics of the history standards to recant is suspect.

I admit the revision is a vast improvement. However, I join Mrs. Cheney who replied to the Ravitch-Schlesinger whitewash by questioning the need for federal dictates on education.

She still objects to President Clinton's Goals 2000, which embrace "equity in education resources" as a "moral obligation."

Cheney denies that student achievement is only a product of resources expended. The controlling factors, she says, is teacher motivation and pupil response.

"If we have learned anything from the debacle of the original history standards -- and the English/language arts standards as well -- it should be that danger can lie in deciding to visit a single version of any subject on every child in the nation," Cheney declares.

History is the glue that holds our culture together.

It is too important to be left to educators and politicians.

We the people must ride herd on them constantly to keep them focused on society's wishes, not theirs.

PARTING SHOTS

Education is what you learn after you think you know it all.

* * *

Jimmy Carter, the only living, Democratic ex-president, was scripted out of his party's convention. Instead, he will go camping with Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. Better to risk attack by wild rabbits than wild donkeys.

* * *

Ever notice that Democrats don't feature their jackass emblem, while Republicans flaunt elephants with trunks curled up in fighting stance?

* * *

Patricia Mendoza refused to shake hands with President Clinton recently. She told him his policy regarding Saudi Arabia "sucks" and led to the deaths of 19 soldiers there by a terrorist bomb. Clinton's Secret Service bodyguards arrested her for "disorderly conduct." Perhaps Paula Jones could define the charge at Mrs. Mendoza's upcoming trial.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers