Very much thanks to Lily Malcolm, one of the posters on The Kitchen Cabinet for pointing out this Los Angeles Times book review on "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn" by Diane Ravitch. Ravitch, former assistant secretary in the Department of Education during the Bush (Sr.) administration and on the National Assessment Governing Board, overseeing the development of voluntary national tests proposed by the Clinton administration, points out that the "political correctness" censorship is insidious and has not been imposed by the federal government. This censorship has been voluntarily embraced by textbook publishers who do so for economic reasons, so as to be adopted by schools and by states where statewide adoptions are required. Ravitch describes a strategy of "preemptive capitulation" that feeds those who would find fault with the mentioning of dolphins, peanuts, divorce, magic, ghosts, owls and dinosaurs. "Rewarding groups that complain by allowing them to censor words and images that they don't like only encourages them," she concludes. "Censorship should be stopped, not rewarded with compliance and victories." How to fix it?
In her closing chapter, Ravitch presents concrete and practical proposals for fixing what is wrong. Discontinuing the practice of statewide textbook adoptions, she believes, would open up the marketplace to competition and allow schools and teachers to choose books for themselves. She also urges "sunlight" as the best disinfectant: If publishers and states were required to publish their guidelines and allow the public to be privy to how the "bias and sensitivity" panels make their determinations, Ravitch feels confident that the public would laugh the most ludicrous of them out of existence. It would also be a help, she thinks, for journals and newspapers to publish reviews of textbooks, just as they now review trade books.
It is definitely worth a try. I think I said my piece about this subject quite succinctly below.
Posted by Tiger at May 2, 2003 11:28 PM | TrackBack