careers in publishing as sales representatives. They are not historians, but they
know their market. They make sure their books include whatever is likely to be
of concern. Everything gets mentioned. Lynne Cheney, former director of the
National Endowment for the Humanities, decried the result: “Textbooks come
to seem like glossaries of historical events—compendiums of topics.”^33 In
recent years, even more has to get mentioned, owing to the multiple-choice
tests that many states have concocted to comply with the No Child Left Behind
Act. Teachers will always teach to a test, especially a high-stakes test that
results in students not getting diplomas or schools being placed on probation.
Multiple-choice exams almost have to test “twig history”—tiny factoids like
“When did the War of 1812 begin?”^34 No Child Left Behind does not require
multiple-choice tests in history. Indeed, it does not require any tests in history.
Teachers have learned to their sorrow, however, that the only thing worse than
a multiple-choice test in history is no test in history, for then a school district
de-emphasizes history entirely, focusing instead on those subjects that are
tested. There is an answer to this conundrum, however, and some states have
found it: develop a test—or portfolio or other instrument—worth teaching to.
In the meantime, however, NCLB and the statewide exams it has spawned
provide one more reason for textbooks to grow longer and teachers to use them
haplessly.
In some states the next step is hearings, at which the public is invited to
comment on books under consideration by the rating committees. In Texas and
California, at least, these hearings are occasions at which organized groups
attack or promote one or more of the selections, often contending that a book
fails to meet a requirement found within the regulations or specifications.
Although publishers lament the procedure, critics, particularly in Texas, have
unearthed and forced publishers to correct hundreds of errors, from
misspellings to major blunders. Since adoption committees do try to please
constituents, those who complain at hearings often make a difference, for better
and sometimes for worse.
Adoption states used to pressure publishers overtly to espouse certain points
of view. For years any textbook sold in Dixie had to call the Civil War “the
War between the States.” Earlier editions of The American Pageant used the
even more pro-Confederate term “the War for Southern Independence.”This is
simply bad history. Between 1861 and 1865 while it was going on, the Civil
War was called “the Civil War,” “the Rebellion,” or “the Great Rebellion”—