We often hear of conservative attacks on this or that curricular item in public schools.  Conservatives want sex ed out.  They want evolution out.  They block this and they block that.

But many conservative school activists also have a strong idea of the kinds of things they want IN public schools.  The Texas Freedom Network Insider shared recently a review form from the Texas State Board of Education.  The questions asked by the SBOE tip readers squarely in the direction of conservative, traditionalist textbooks.

These Texas conservatives might take a page from their grandparents’ playbook.  In the 1920s and 1930s, conservative activists promoted their own textbooks in America’s public schools.  Tired of seeing books that bashed capitalism or traditional family values, conservatives in those decades took matters into their own hands.

The tactics from today’s conservative activists seem more modest.  As the TFN Insider points out, the review form used by the Texas SBOE asks reviewers to respond to “politically loaded” questions such as the following:

“Does this lesson present positive aspects of US heritage?”

“Does this lesson present unbiased materials and illustrations?”

“Does this lesson present generally accepted standards of behavior and lifestyles?”

“Does this lesson promote respect for citizenship and patriotism?”

“Does this lesson promote the free enterprise system?”

These questions hint at the kinds of things conservatives would like to see in textbooks and classroom materials.

Conservatives in Texas might find inspiration from their grandparents’ generation.  There’s nothing new about conservative hopes for textbooks that promote capitalism, patriotism, traditional lifestyles, and a good attitude about the USA.  But in the past, conservative activists did more than just ask reviewers to look for such things.

In the 1920s, for example, the American Legion sponsored a new textbook that promised to give students a patriotic yet accurate story of America’s roots.  When Charles Hoyne’s The Story of the American People appeared in 1926, conservatives lavished praise upon it.  The Klan-backed governor of Oregon, Walter M. Pierce, sent Hoyne a gushing letter.  Pierce called the volumes “the finest history of early America that we have ever had.”  Other conservatives agreed, calling the book a blessing to “the loyal and liberty-loving people of our country” and books that defended “the spirit of American patriotism.”

Unfortunately for Hoyne, for the American Legion, and for the conservatives who jumped to embrace the new textbooks, other readers had different opinions.  A Legion-appointed review committee found the books to be full of errors.  Writing in the pages of Harper’s, critic Harold Underwood Faulkner called the books “perverted American history.”

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In the end, despite high hopes for schoolbooks that would finally put a positive—but accurate—spin on all things American, the Legion withdrew their support and Hoyne’s books went nowhere.

The National Association of Manufacturers had much more success producing capitalism-friendly school materials.  Starting in 1939, NAM sent educational literature and classroom posters to roughly 17,000 classroom teachers and school administrators.  Being savvy businessmen, the leaders of the NAM wanted to know if this investment was a good one.  They wanted to know if the pamphlets made people like capitalism better.  To find out, they hired pollster Henry Abt to survey the schools.  Abt reported that most of the teachers considered the NAM-produced books “primarily as an informational service; an authoritative source of economic and social data.”  From the NAM’s perspective, nothing could be better.  Students read NAM’s paeans to capitalism and took them as authoritative social science.

Perhaps the book reviewers in Texas might take a page from the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s.  If conservatives really want to see more conservative textbooks, they might have to publish them themselves.  Of course, they’d want to watch out for the Hoyne trap.  Any classroom materials must be more like the slick, glossy pamphlets and posters distributed by the National Association of Manufacturers.  Anything else will end up just an embarrassment.