The United Farm Workers have a new action alert (7/24/09) about "an education war going on in Texas" they note has "major national implications as Texas is such a major purchaser of textbooks and their state’s required curriculum drives the content of textbooks produced nationwide."

Specifically, "the Texas State Board of Education is currently preparing to adopt new social studies curriculum standards" informed by certain "experts" who

are arguing that the state’s social studies and history textbooks are giving "too much attention" to some of the most prominent civil rights leaders in U.S. History, namely Cesar Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

David Barton, one of these "experts," claimed Cesar Chávez "lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others." Another of these "experts" evangelical minister Peter Marshall said, "To have Cesar Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin"--as in the current standards--"is ludicrous." He went on to say Chávez is not a role model who "ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation."

The same "expert" wants to eliminate Thurgood Marshall, a prominent civil rights leader who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court justice. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of an important historical figure to be presented to Texas students.

To the UFW, complaints of an "over-representation of minorities" are particularly "ironic in light of the changing demographics of our country"--where, "sadly, Latino and African-American children have the highest drop-out rates in the country."

Take action against cultural censorship by telling the Texas State Board of Education chair and vice chair "to ensure schools are providing students with role models and historical figures whose experiences reflect their own."

Editor & Publisher is running a wire item (Associated Press, 7/16/09) on the Richmond Times-Dispatch's recent front-page editorial and website video "expressing regret for supporting the state's fight to maintain separate schools for blacks and whites in the 1950s."

The paper's confession of its "central role in the 'dreadful doctrine' of Massive Resistance--a systematic campaign by Virginia's white political leaders to block school desegregation"--functions as testament to both their current integrity and one of the darkest episodes of U.S. journalism. Here's an except:

Fifty years ago Virginia had a rendezvous with destiny and came up wanting. It scorned human rights and the promise of the Declaration of Independence....

Throughout the episode, [parent company] Richmond Newspapers played a central role--but not a centering one. The hour was ignoble. Editorials in the [pre-merger] News Leader relentlessly championed Massive Resistance and the dubious constitutional arguments justifying its unworthy cause. Although not so intimately engaged, the Times-Dispatch was complicit. The record fills us with regret....

Words have consequences. Artful paragraphs promoted ugly things. Stylish sentences salted wounds. Euphemism was profligate. As members of the Fourth Estate, these pages did not keep a proper distance, either....

Yesteryear's words cannot be revoked. They endure on newsprint yellow and brittle, on microfilm, and in the computer files into which they have been translated. They belong to history, and history lives. It is well and good that the words be remembered, as a warning perhaps best.

Sam Dillon's New York Times piece (12/14/08) is much better than most of the coverage of President-elect Barack Obama's search for an Education secretary nominee. It's even got some on-target media criticism:

Editorials and opinion articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have described the debate as pitting education reformers against those representing the educational establishment or the status quo. But who the reformers are depends on who is talking.