Disturbing high school textbooks are teaching students about the war on terror & the Patriot Act from a biased perspective.
The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf took to examine how high schoolers are learning about 9/11 and the years following.
His general findings: the threat of terrorism can be eliminated, the Patriot Act was not controversial and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Friedersdorf's analysis is decidedly unscientific, looking only at one history textbook: a 2003 edition of The American Vision by Professors Joyce Appleby, Alan Brinkley, Albert Broussard, James McPhereson, and Donald Ritchie. Still, the book is one of the most used American history textbooks in schools for 11th graders.
Those of us who lived through 9/11 recall the controversy over George W. Bush's domestic response to it, especially the PATRIOT Act. Circa 2003, here is how the authors described its adoption:
As part of his efforts to protect the American people from further terrorist attacks, President Bush created the Office of Homeland Security to coordinate the dozens of federal agencies working to prevent terrorism. He then appointed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to serve as the agency's director. The President also asked Congress to pass legislation to help law enforcement agencies track down terrorist suspects. Drafting the legislation took time. Congress had to balance Americans' Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure with the need to increase security. President Bush signed the new antiterrorist bill - known as the USA Patriot Act - into law in October 2001. The new law allowed secret searches to avoid tipping off suspects in terrorism cases. It also allowed authorities to obtain a single nationwide search warrant that could be used anywhere. The law also made it easier to wiretap suspects, and it allowed authorities to track e-mail and seize voicemail.
He criticizes the book's flat portrayal of 9/11, perhaps misleading students to believe that the day's attacks killed more people than the invasion of Normandy. The authors, he points out, also use examples of "terrorist attacks" on America that don't fit the book's own definition of terrorism. Friedersdorf writes:
What follows is an account of the early War on Terrorism told from the perspective of the Bush Administration, often using paraphrased or direct quotes from government officials rather than exercising judgment. "President Bush decided the time had come to end the threat of terrorism in the world," the authors say, as if discussing a plausible proposal that might well end up succeeding.
Isn't that the sort of myopia historical study is supposed to gird us against?
Click through to continue reading excerpts from the textbook and Friedersdorf's analysis of the chapter's teachings of the Patriot Act, acts of terrorism against America, anthrax and the Bush administration's response and decisions leading up to the Afghanistan War.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/what-high-school-taught-millennials-about-the-war-on-terrorism/265192/
http://www.edutopia.org/muddle-machine
http://paidcontent.org/2012/01/21/419-the-abcs-and-123s-of-apple-and-the-k-12-textbook-market/
http://sandboxworld.com/2010/08/school-textbook-is-big-business/
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/01/why-education-publishing-is-big-business/