EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF TRUTH IN CALIFORNIA TEXTBOOK REVIEWS

8th Grade Errors

Teacher’s Curriculum Institute History Alive! The United States Through Industrialism

  • “Throughout this unit, you’ll learn about the development of American constitutional democracy.”
  • The US is constitutional republic. This error is repeated nearly a dozen times.
  • The Electoral College system still affects presidential elections today. In most states, the candidate who gets the most votes-even if less than a majority-wins all of that state’s electoral votes. As a result, a candidate can win a majority in the Electoral College without necessarily winning a majority of the votes cast across the country. In the presidential election of 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency over Hillary Clinton by getting the most Electoral College votes, even though Clinton received more votes than Trump in the popular election.
  • The distribution of votes in the Electoral College balances elements of direct democracy with elements of representative democracy. This helps to prevent several large states from winning all the elections, but only when the vote is close. For this reason, it is a check and balance, and helps to prevent the ‘tyranny of the majority’ by offering some protection to state and regional interests, rather than catering to a handful of large states.
  • How justifiable was U.S. expansion in the 1800s?
  • This opening question is leading the students. Students cannot make an informed determination as the text does not provide complete picture for those who felt the Manifest Destiny was justified. See next entry.
  • Most Americans were pleased with the new outlines of their country, but not everyone rejoiced in this expansion. Until the Mexican-American War, many people had believed that the United States was too good a nation to bully or invade its weaker neighbors. Now they knew that such behavior was the dark side of manifest destiny.
  • Mexico was the instigator of the war. “Though the United States were the aggrieved nation, Mexico commenced the war, and we were compelled in self-defense to repel the invader….”
  • Early American leaders agreed that the survival of democracy depended on an educated population.
  • The Framers of the Constitution stressed that they were setting up a republic, not a democracy, so this term should be used when discussing the U. S. government. They were opposed to a democracy.
  • Most students were boys. Some girls attended village schools, but girls often learned to read and write at home, if at all.
  • “Home-based education continued to be common for most of the time for most children’s lives through the nineteenth century. By one estimate, in 1870 only about 65 percent of 5- to 17-year-olds were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools”
  • Horace Mann and other reformers solved these problems by creating free public schools. The public schools stuck to basic moral lessons like the Ten Commandments while avoiding religious ideas that caused conflict. Although some strong believers disliked Mann's compromise, they found it hard to refuse free public education.
  • Teaching only basic moral lessons was not the only reason for opposition to Mann’s public schools.

‘Horace Mann and many others planned to use the common school, under government control – at first, more-local government control – as an instrument to create a new public philosophy “… to be shared by Americans of every background and persuasion”

  • The Gettysburg Address is one of the shortest, most impactful and inspirational speeches ever written. It is something all Americans can be proud of, and read with unqualified admiration. This textbook on American history fails to include it.
  • Legal recognition of family ties was important, but the Freedmen’s Bureau placed heavy emphasis on promoting one kind of family. Anything other than a man marrying a woman was not accepted. For example, different states had variations of the same laws about marriage. For some, the marriage laws were harshly enforced.
  • The text implies that applications for same-sex marriages were received by the bureau and denied. This does not seem likely. The text also judges people of the 1860’s by the standards of 2017. Traditional marriage was the norm in the United States and the world for recorded history, and anything other than a man marrying a woman was not accepted, whether African-American or otherwise.
  • The Chinese workers, who had contributed so much to building the railroad, were not acknowledged at the celebration. Their reward for their years of hard work was to lose their jobs.
  • There were at least two celebrations; like the one in San Francisco that did not include Chinese workers. This snub was noted by at least one SF newspaper, and is generally in the national consciousness.
  • There was another celebration at the actual location of the joining of the two railroads, in Promontory, UT. Chinese workers participated in this one. This was documented by the same newspaper, but is generally not known by the public. Chinese workers on the Central Pacific side were given the honor of laying the last few ties, and the last spike
  • Industrialization clearly brought benefits to some. On March 26, 1883, Alva Vanderbilt threw a party to show off her family's new home in New York City.
  • The text leads the student to the erroneous conclusion that the broader society did not benefit from industrialization. The text itself in Section 2 on Improved Technology, New Production Methods notes that there were benefits that were enjoyed by all not just the rich
  • To manage his many businesses, Rockefeller combined them into the Standard Oil Trust. The trust made the oil industry more efficient than ever before. But, as a monopoly, the trust had the power to control oil prices, which worried people who depended on oil in their homes and businesses.
  • The cost of refined oil reached its history low at the height of Standard Oil’s dominance of the industry.
  • Many immigrants were eager to adopt American ways, but others had little choice.Public schools taught in English, and most stores sold only American-style clothes, food, and other goods. Many employers demanded that their workers speak English on the job.
  • Language is one of the single most powerful unifying cultural forces. A nation has an interest in encouraging a unified population that has shared cultural values. Public school students were quickly immersed in English at school. They spoke the home language at home, and became the bridge generation between the first and 3rd generation of immigrants in the family.
  • No mention is made of the many immigrant aid oranizations which existed to help immigrants.
  • In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, breaking apart to form 15 new nations.This event ended the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower.
  • Ronald Reagan is not given credit for his role in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union
  • On September 11, 2001, a shocked nation watched as passenger planes hijacked by terrorists flew into the two World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. In response, President George W. Bush declared a “war on terror.” That war has taken U.S. troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries, U.S. forces have worked to root out groups committed to the destruction of the United States and its allies.
  • The men who committed this criminal act were militant Islamic terrorists and the wording should be changed to accurately reflect that.
  • President George W. Bush’s Address to the Nation on the September 11 Attacks (2001). On September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush delivered a speech to a nation in mourning.Earlier in the day, terrorists hijacked four planes, killing around 3,000 Americans. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane hit the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. and a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
  • The men who committed this criminal act were militant Islamic terrorists and the wording should be changed to accurately reflect that.
  • Students analyze the political principles underlying the U.S. Constitution and compare the enumerated and implied powers of the federal government. Describe the principles of federalism, dual sovereignty, separation of powers, checks and balances, the nature and purpose of majority rule, and the ways in which the American idea of constitutionalism preserves individual rights.

Pearson American History myWorld Interactive

  • Spain’s Empire: By the time Columbus died, Europeans realized that he had not reached Asia. They began talking about the discovery of a “new world.” The name “America” first appeared on a map in 1507.
  • The authors fail to explain the reasons that “Europeans realized that he had not reached Asia.” They also fail to explain in any way the origin and/or the man behind the name, “America.” “America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator and explorer who played a prominent role in exploring the New World.”
  • Slavery had long existed in Africa, in places such as Senegambia and Mali. Other areas of the world had slavery, too. Most slaves in Africa were people who had been captured in war. Usually, they were enslaved for a few years. Then, they became full, free members of the society. In the Americas, however, a harsher system of slavery developed over time. Enslaved Africans worked on plantations and were treated as property, not people. Children of enslaved people were considered slaves from birth
  • The history of slavery outside of America is truncated and romanticized by the authors. The authors do not explain that slavery is practiced throughout all of the history of civilization nor that slavery was practiced throughout the entire world involving varying degrees of brutality.
  • The textbook omits the fact that there are still “an estimated 20.9 Million people trapped in some form of slavery today. It’s sometimes called ‘Modern-Day Slavery’ and sometimes ‘Human Trafficking.’ At all times it is slavery at its core.”
  • The textbook fails to inform the students that slavery continued throughout the Muslim world long after it ended in the United States and continues in some areas in the Muslim world today.
  • What are the Origins of Capitalism? Slowly, capitalism took shape. Capitalism is an economic system in which people put money, or capital, into a business in order to make a profit.
  • The authors give a poor, inadequate and negatively slanted definition of capitalism.
  • The British Secure the Frontier. Later that year, Pontiac led an attack on British troops at Fort Detroit. A number of other Indian nations joined him. In a few short months, they captured most British forts in the Ohio country. British and colonial troops then struck back and regained much of what they had lost.
  • The authors leave out the fact that the Indian nations never captured Fort Detroit. The authors omit that there were numerous, extremely brutal Indian attacks against the settlers.
  • When the smoke from the musket volley cleared, five people lay dead or dying. Among the first to die were Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old white youth, and Crispus Attucks, a free black sailor.
  • Every resource that this reviewer has seen holds that Crispus Attucks was THE first man to die in the Boston Massacre and thus the first man to die in the cause of liberty and the Revolutionary War. The descriptor “white” after the name of Samuel Maverick injects the simple slanted point of view of the authors. Since the vast majority of the colonists involved at this time would also be so, and that the colonists were from a diversity of European origins, the adjective does not inform and serves no purpose.
  • In explaining the “3/5” compromise in a video:
  • Activists use the 3/5 compromise as grounds for defying the Constitution and demeaning those who wrote it, claiming the Founding Fathers only considered slaves as 3/5 human.
  • What they fail to acknowledge is that the 3/5 compromise was intended to limit representation for slave states and prevent the South from having an overwhelming majority in The House of Representatives. Delegates from free states put in place the mechanism necessary for abolishing the evil practice.” This false narrative is reinforced in several chapters.
  • Academic Vocabulary ethical. Adj., following accepted standards for conduct or behavior
  • This is an erroneous definition of the term ‘ethical’ the authors slant the definition towards relativism. The term is correctly defined in light of morality and principal, not ‘accepted’ conduct.
  • Religious freedom became the very first right listed in the First Amendment. Jefferson later wrote that the First Amendment built “wall of separation between Church & State.” James Madison supported Jefferson’s belief that the state, or government, should not promote religion.
  • The ‘wall of separation’ is not written into the Constitution. This was nothing but a comment that Jefferson made in a letter to reassure a religious group that the government would not prefer one religious denomination over another. It is a mistake to give this phrase emphasis over the many writings of the Founding Fathers in support of a religious population as necessary to government.
  • First comes the Preamble. The Constitution states the six goals.
  • Omitted is the very important “First principle of the Constitution: This Constitution is ordained and established by we the people. This principle recognized the unalienable RIGHT of the people of the United States to govern themselves.
  • Analyze Images Sixty members of the House of Representatives, including John Lewis of Georgia, Nancy Pelosi of California, and Charles Rangel of New York, held a sit-in during a Congressional session to demand action on gun safety in June 2016. Infer Why do you think these representatives took such an extreme action?
  • This photo and its caption introduce a politically charged topic in the form of a thought question. Students are not prepared to “infer” Many people hold widely differing views on the Second Amendment. This photo and its caption are out of place in a discussion of the basic functions of the branches of government
  • Not all powers of Congress are specifically listed. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18, states that Congress can “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” for carrying out its specific duties.
  • In this entire section the authors create a mistaken equivalency between the two very different interpretations of this Clause. They begin by truncating the Claus and omitting the words “the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution.” This phrase illustrates that the Framers, after carefully delineating the powers of Congress, wished to allow them freedom of means and methods to accomplish those delineated tasks.
  • The Framers thought that Congress would be the most important branch of government.
  • The authors provide no reference to support this assertion.
  • Today, some people favor replacing the electoral college with a system that directly elects the President by popular vote. Others oppose any change, pointing out that the electoral college has served the nation well for more than 200 years.
  • The book omits a rational reason for the defense of the Electoral College. The authors omit fact that the Framers felt it necessary to put this system in place. They omit any of the many good arguments for the EC. (1). Electoral College promotes a two-party system of governance. (2). This filters votes so in events of regional antagonism, there will be a reliable and reasonable solution. (3). Electoral College also offers a framework for establishing and organizing campaigns. (4) Electoral College aids in directing power to the states and without this system, it would be more centralized. (5) This system also makes small states as viable participants.
  • Although created more than 200 years ago, the Constitution is a living document that can be changed as the world changes.
  • The authors’ claim that the Constitution is a living document has been presented as a fact. They omit the fact that many scholars, politicians, lawyers and everyday Americans do not agree that the document is malleable.
  • Since early times, Americans have debated the exact meaning of the Second Amendment.
  • The authors’ claim that the Constitution is a living document has been presented as a fact. They omit the fact that many scholars, politicians, lawyers and everyday Americans do not agree that the document is malleable.
  • Traders ran great risks, especially in the Mediterranean Sea. Pirates from the Barbary States, countries along the coast of North Africa, attacked passing vesses. To protect American ships, the United States paid a yearly tribute to rulers of the Barbary States such as Tripoli. In 1801, Tripoli increased its demands for tribute. When Jefferson refused to pay, Tripoli declared war on the United States. Jefferson then ordered the navy to blockade the port of Tripoli, a city in Northern Africa.
  • The textbook omits any reference to the fact that the Barbary Pirates were Muslims and fighting for their holy book. That they were not only pirating for tribute, but also to take American and European slaves. “With the advance of Mohammed’s armies into the Christian Levant in the seventh century, the Mediterranean was slowly transformed into the backwater frontier of the battles between crescent and cross. Battles raged on both land and sea, and religious piracy flourished. ... the Barbary pirates were committed, militant Muslims who meant to do exactly what they said.
  • Whitman was also one of the first modern poets to write about same-sex love. Her (Dickinson) close friendship with her brother’s wife, Susan, has led some scholars to speculate that the two women had a romantic relationship, although there is no definite evidence of this.
  • Rather than emphasizing why these poets’ works were great, instead there is emphasis on homosexuality among these great poets which implies that homosexuality is a significant feature worthy of special mention and leads the student to an agenda based conclusion about homosexuality.
  • One out of every seven Union soldiers and one out of every nine Confederate soldiers deserted.
  • Although estimates vary, the rates of desertion were high with some sources saying one of five Union soldiers and one of three Confederate soldiers deserting.

National Geographic Cengage/Grade 8 US History/American Stories: Beginning to World War I