Texas Board of Ed's Mix-up with Brown Bear Author

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By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 02/22/2010

It's more than a case of mistaken identity. Bill Martin, Jr. is just the latest casualty in the storm surrounding the state of Texas as its State Board of Education revamps its social studies curriculum for K–12 students.

The celebrated deceased author of the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Holt, 1967), also a World War II veteran and author of I Pledge Allegiance (Candlewick, 2002), who liked to have children sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag” before readings, was cast aside by the State Board of Ed, which refused to allow him to be studied as someone who had contributed to our cultural heritage.

The reason? They believed him to be the same man as Bill Martin, author of Ethical Marxism (Open Court, 2008), a professor of philosophy who currently teaches at DePaul University in Chicago.

“It’s a huge concern when schools or state boards make decisions that are not thoughtful or with poor information,” says Angela Maycock, assistant director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association.

The decision, while likely to be reversed, is being taken up by some as a symbol that religious and political views, along with poor research, are being used to decide what K-12 students in Texas should learn in history and social studies courses.

Michael Sampson (left) and Bill Martin, Jr.

“It’s so silly that people who make a contribution to education have such a flawed educational approach to research,” says Michael Sampson, Martin’s coauthor on several books including the popular Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 (S & S, 2004), who remembers Martin singing with students at readings. “Bill was a patriot.”

Even those who are pushing for what watchdogs have called “ludicrous” decisions agree that the Martin decision may have been wrong—but still believe in pushing for standards that have raised the ire in others, such as suggesting reasonable cause for Joseph McCarthy’s tactics during his infamous hearings to find Soviet spies in America in 1954.

“That was a mistake,” says Don McLeroy, a dentist and member of the Texas State Board of Education, of excluding Bill Martin, Jr. “But we did pass an amendment that we modify the standard to include papers that confirmed Soviet infiltration when talking about McCarthy.”

However, Dan Quinn finds that decision problematic. “A standard that implies McCarthy smear tactics were somehow justified is difficult to stomach,” says the communications director for the Texas Freedom Network, a self-described public education and religious liberties watchdog. “They also want to add an amendment that completely turns around the civil rights movement that says they didn’t have to fight for civil rights, but that the majority just gave it to them.”

Angela Maycock of ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Of particular concern to educators watching Texas’s process is that often publishers use textbooks created for Texas’s curriculum as a template for other states. The Lone Star State spends so much money on the books—and so many are created—that publishers are loath to re-create the wheel, so to speak.

“Unlike Vegas, what happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas,” says Quinn.

The State Board of Education will meet again in March and then again in May when a last vote will finalize decisions of what goes into social studies books for Texas students starting in 2012.

To McLeroy, the disagreements are just part of a healthy discourse, and that students will end up the better. “There are two different groups with two different points of view and my goal is to just have good accurate history,” he says. “We just want to add some historical balance.”