Ever since the Civil Rights Movement, there has been grassroots pressure by educators and community activists to change the textbooks used in U.S. schools. There have been MANY instances throughout the US Education System that shows the whitewashing of our textbooks and the removal of Black History and History of the POC Community.

For years, McGraw-Hill has set the standard for All Textbooks across the country. McGraw-Hill has a history of whitewashing their text books, including an instance in 2015 where they “decided it would be best to rename slavery as “patterns of immigration” in World Geography” and in 2010 tried to change the Slave Trade as the “Atlantic Triangular Trade”.

In addition to McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson, “whitewashed” slavery by downplaying the brutality of the facts and treating it as a “side issue” in 2015. 

How To Make a Change

1) Set up an Independent Textbook Review Board that is not associated with any existing School Board or associated with any textbook publisher. This Review Board must be diverse in gender, age, race, sexual orientation and must be neutral in their textbook research, findings and recommendations, leaving all political leanings off the table.

2) Help schools remove outdated, whitewashed textbooks and replace them with textbooks that are Approved by the Independent Textbook Review Board. If textbooks cannot be replaced due to financial restraints of the individual school, the Textbook Review Board will work with that school to find additional, low cost resources and learning supplies to help supplement their existing history textbooks.

3) Create an Online Learning Path of History (likened to other Online Learning Apps) that is available to all K-12 Students to help them learn about the true history of America and why we are called "The Melting Pot".

* * * Update!!! * * * 

Upon further research, it seems the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Board of Education also sets the standard for the United States regarding textbooks. They set the guidelines and McGraw Hill, being based in Texas, follows those guidelines.

And while we are at it, Betsy Devos has been added to this Petition. She is the head of the Department of Education and she should be held accountable as well.

Please sign the petition to help stop the whitewashing of our textbooks and hold Houghton Mifflin & Macmillan, McGraw-Hill, the TEA and the Texas Board of Education ACCOUNTABLE!