Posted on 04/21/2019 1:33:37 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
A new Advanced Placement American history textbook is raising red flags because of its anti-Trump language and its suggestion that Trump supporters are racist.
By the People: A History of the United States is the newest edition of a Pearson Education history book that could be made available to high school students if school districts opt to use it.
The book has not yet been distributed to students but has been introduced to teachers to see if they would want to use it as part of their curriculum in the next couple of years.
Tarra Snyder, a student at Rosemount High School in Minnesota saw a sample copy of the book sent to her high school history teacher and snapped an image of its material.
She told CBN News why she decided to share the image on social media.
"I know people all over the country are supporters of the conservative part and to say that they are all one-sided and they are all white, suburban and rural and they wouldn't vote for Hillary because she was a woman, and they were nostalgic for an earlier time, I think they were completely out of line," she said.
In the book's final section, titled "The Angry Election of 2016," the author, New York University Prof. James W. Fraser, compares Trump and Hillary Clinton supporters.
"Clinton's supporters feared that the election had been determined by people who were afraid of a rapidly developing ethnic diversity of the country," it reads. "They also worried about the mental instability of the president-elect and the anger that he and his supporters brought to the nation."
"Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti-establishment rhetoric, and, some said, his not-very-hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters," it continues.
The book goes on to describe the demographic of those voters.
"Trump's supporters saw the vote as a victory for people who, like themselves, had been forgotten in a fast-changing America – a mostly older, often rural or suburban, an overwhelmingly white group," the sample copy reads.
Fraser said he wrote the book to "help make US History courses more lively," according to his NYU bio page.
The ordained minister said the purpose of the book was to focus on the lives of everyday Americans from differing "communities, times, and places," not to divide.
"As a writer and teacher I see it as my job to put the information about history, including elections in front of students as honestly and clearly as I can. I tried to do the same for Trump vs. Clinton as I did for Adams vs. Jefferson or any other election," he wrote in a statement sent to CBN News.
"I never want to indoctrinate but to encourage students to listen to various arguments and multiple perspectives," he added.
"Keeping facts from students rightly makes them distrust all textbooks," Fraser continued. "Laying out the facts as clearly as I know how and doing so in comparison to other information or facts is the best way to encourage the kind of thoughtful engagement with history that every historian should work for."
Scott Overland, a spokesperson for the British-based Pearson Education, told CBN News that the textbook was designed to meet specific Advanced Placement standards.
"AP History 'By the People' was developed by an expert author and underwent rigorous peer review to ensure academic integrity," he wrote in a statement. "This work is designed to convey college-level information to high school students and meet specific Advanced Placement standards."
He said the purpose of the text is to promote critical thinking for students.
"U.S. history and government are important topics for students that can evoke passionate responses as they explore difficult and often controversial issues," he wrote in a statement.
Snyder told CBN News the textbook missed the mark.
"In order for you to be thinking critically you have to have both sides of the story," she said. "If only one side of the story is brought forth then the facts are skewed and people are not able to think with the full plethora of information, which would lead people to not make an educated decision on where they stand on the political spectrum."
Snyder did caution against taking things at face value.
"It is healthy for any person to be questioning the material that they are consuming and reading," she added. "I think it is a really important thing to get multiple perspectives."
It's up to individual school districts to determine if they want to adopt the textbook into their high school curriculum.
They don't have a choice if they want their students to pass the test. Guarantee the test will have loaded questions.
Lemme guess... we must be racist because we voted for a white guy instead of... um, a white girl.
See? That proves it (in liberal-think).
The way schools are these days, I tend to think children are better off not going to them at all.
Sounds pretty racist to me. It is offensive.
They should ban it.
Racism, racism, racism... all this talk that goes on and on and never a specific example.
The purpose of history is not to make facts clear, but to impart a particular point of view. The only way this text could be used would be to include a Trump favorable text as well.
I suppose they could also include some videos of Trump rallies. Can you even imagine a teacher doing this, I have taught and once my views became known, and the fact that I lacked tenure, it was discovered that there was not sufficient funds to continue in my position.
Nope, any teacher who provided a view different than this book better have tenure or he/she will be o-u-t.
Pearson Education? What’s their slogan, “Proliferating ignorance one textbook at a time?”
... a woman whose husband was accused of sexual harassment, assault, and even rape. But never mind that. Hillary deserved to be president so that makes it okay.
In the early 2000s, my daughters HS history book had a whole glowing chapter on The Rapist (without mentioning that part)
And another chapter for all other Presidents combined
So NO it's not up to individual high schools whether to get the book. The College Board runs the SATs and between that and AP determines what students are able to enter what college programs (especially elite programs). The College Board is a not for profit. I'll bet engaging in politics and proselytizing is prohibited.
Yep, and this country is soooo racist yet we have MILLIONS of non-whites clamoring to come here.
Pearson is the publisher/distributor. They don’t write the textbooks. Other textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill also publish textbooks but Pearson is probably the largest right now. It is the authors who slant those texts with their political points of view. Because certain states and school districts along with the teachers unions make up the largest consumers of textbooks, they become the de facto arbiters of textbook content. Because of that buying power, even a million complaints will probably not sway the publishers to make changes. You have to go to the individual state and local levels along with hitting the teachers unions. Good luck with that.
There is no evidence that President Trump bears any racial animosity. In fact, his track record has been equal opportunity to sink or swim on one's own merits. He has given many people chances that they perhaps wouldn't otherwise have had.
Anyone the left disagrees with is called "racist" without proof. The claim alone is supposed to be sufficient.
Fraser’s left-wing bias does not begin and end with President Trump. His text also contains a section on the officer-involved shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the Black Lives Matter movement which casts the police in a highly negative light. According to Fraser, Michael Brown’s parents “were kept away at gunpoint” after he was shot and “The nearly all-white police force was seen as an occupying army in the mostly African American town…the police increased the tensions, defacing memorials set up for Brown and using rubber bullets on demonstrators.” -----https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269956/new-ap-history-text-categorizes-trump-supporters-sara-dogan
‘By the PEOPLE: A History of the United States’
The only thing that surprises me is how BLATANT they now are about their hatred of America. Anyone who was paying attention during the Cold War or later knows that the term ‘PEOPLE’ is a dog-whistle for the Left, as in ‘People’s Republic of China’, ‘Democrat People’s Republic of North Korea, etc.
It used to be that you needed to go to Page 469 to find the America-hatred, now it’s right on the cover.
Students all across America are being taught that every white person is a racist, no matter how hard that person may try to expunge racism from their thinking.
Didn’t the fascists change history books ?
Democrats are taking a cue from hitler
That thrilling time when I got my first library card included being allowed permission to check out from the adult shelves and carefully read the Arthur M. Schlesinger series on the New Deal. I didn’t know another viewpoint existed than school teachers taught and such books. His and Theodore H. White’s books on JFK were the standards we had soon after that.
Someday all the rabid, Trump Deranged anti-Trump historians will have history books on the dark, horrible years of Trump in office. Many have already started with the “use the 25th Amendment” and “the wonderful world of impeachment” style books and such.
I can imagine the “authoritative” history book bias they will soon use.
Don’t we have a secretary of education to stop this? Or to at least raise holy hell?
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