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The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, by Diane Ravitch
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Before Anton Chekhov and Mark Twain can be used in school readers and exams, they must be vetted by a bias and sensitivity committee. An anthology used in Tennessee schools changed “By God!” to “By gum!” and “My God!” to “You don’t mean it.” The New York State Education Department omitted mentioning Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, or blacks in Annie Dillard’s memoir of growing up in a racially mixed town. California rejected a reading book because The Little Engine That Could was male.
Diane Ravitch maintains that America’s students are compelled to read insipid texts that have been censored and bowdlerized, issued by publishers who willingly cut controversial material from their books—a case of the bland leading the bland.
The Language Police is the first full-scale expos� of this cultural and educational scandal, written by a leading historian. It documents the existence of an elaborate and well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and implemented by test makers and textbook publishers, states, and the federal government. School boards and bias and sensitivity committees review, abridge, and modify texts to delete potentially offensive words, topics, and imagery. Publishers practice self-censorship to sell books in big states.
To what exactly do the censors object? A typical publisher’s guideline advises that
• Women cannot be depicted as caregivers or doing
household chores.
• Men cannot be lawyers or doctors or plumbers.
They must be nurturing helpmates.
• Old people cannot be feeble or dependent; they
must jog or repair the roof.
• A story that is set in the mountains discriminates
against students from flatlands.
• Children cannot be shown as disobedient or in
conflict with adults.
• Cake cannot appear in a story because it is not
nutritious.
The result of these revisions are—no surprise!—boring, inane texts about a cotton-candy world bearing no resemblance to what children can access with the click of a remote control or a computer mouse. Sadly, data show that these efforts to sanitize language do not advance learning or bolster test scores, the very
reason given for banning allegedly insensitive words and topics.
Ravitch offers a powerful political and economic analysis of the causes of censorship. She has practical and sensible solutions for ending it, which will improve the quality of books for students as well as liberating publishers, state boards of education, and schools from the grip of pressure groups.
Passionate and polemical, The Language Police is a book for every educator, concerned parent, and engaged citizen.
- Sales Rank: #1614590 in Books
- Published on: 2003-04
- Released on: 2003-04-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.52" h x 1.01" w x 6.55" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 272 pages
Amazon.com Review
The impulse in the 1960s and ‘70s to achieve fairness and a balanced perspective in our nation’s textbooks and standardized exams was undeniably necessary and commendable. Then how could it have gone so terribly wrong? Acclaimed education historian Diane Ravitch answers this question in her informative and alarming book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. Author of 7 books, Ravitch served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. Her expertise and her 30-year commitment to education lend authority and urgency to this important book, which describes in copious detail how pressure groups from the political right and left have wrested control of the language and content of textbooks and standardized exams, often at the expense of the truth (in the case of history), of literary quality (in the case of literature), and of education in general. Like most people involved in education, Ravitch did not realize "that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive." In this clear-eyed critique, she is an unapologetic challenger of the ridiculous and damaging extremes to which bias guidelines and sensitivity training have been taken by the federal government, the states, and textbook publishers.
From Publishers Weekly
Textbook publishers are guilty of self-censorship, argues Ravitch (Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform) in this polemical analysis of the anti-bias and sensitivity guidelines that govern much of today's educational publishing. Looking at lawsuits, school board hearings and private correspondence between textbook editors, Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University, shows how publishers are squeezed by pressure from groups on the right (which object to depictions of disobedience, family conflict, sexuality, evolution and the supernatural) and the left (which correct for the racism and sexism of older textbooks by urging stringent controls on language and images to weed out possibly offensive stereotypes)-most publishers have quietly adopted both sets of suggestions. In chapters devoted specifically to literature and history texts, Ravitch contends that these sanitized materials sacrifice literary quality and historical accuracy in order to escape controversy. She also discusses how current statewide textbook adoption methods have undermined competition and brought about the consolidation of the educational publishing industry, leading to more bland, simplistic fare. There is no shortage of colorful examples: a scientific passage about owls was rejected from a standardized test because the birds are taboo for Navajos; one set of stereotype guidelines urges writers to avoid depicting "children as healthy bundles of energy"; editors of a science textbook rejected a sentence about fossil fuels being the primary cause of global warming because "[w]e'd never be adopted in Texas." Readers will likely disagree about whether, on balance, anti-bias guidelines do more harm than good, but Ravitch's detailed, concise, impassioned argument raises crucial questions for parents and educators. Appendixes include "A Glossary of Banned Words, Usages, Stereotypes, and Topics" as well as a recommended reading list for students.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ravitch brings experience as a member of a federal testing board and as a critically acclaimed writer about education issues to this critique. She takes to task the publishers of textbooks and standardized tests for removing language and images deemed offensive, thereby robbing text of meaning, substance, or value. Bombarded with political correctness by the Left and religious fundamentalism by the Right, publishers with well-intentioned efforts to eliminate bias have succumbed to pressure to produce texts that avoid all controversy but ultimately fail to improve students' test scores or their ability to read. Ravitch maintains that conservatives control topics (no references to evolution or nontraditional families) and the Left controls language and image (no racist or sexist inferences), devoting separate chapters to their respective censorship efforts. She cites numerous examples of policies and guidelines adopted by publishers influenced by private-interest groups that hold sway in California and Texas, two of the largest textbook markets in the nation. Parents, teachers, and librarians will appreciate this penetrating look at the factors influencing textbook publishers. Vanessa Bush
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
110 of 113 people found the following review helpful.
The Language Police
By J. Martin Rochester
Diane Ravitch's The Language Police shines a light on a dark secret in k-12 education, namely the scandalous undermining of content standards in k-12 textbooks due to a collusion between textbook publishers and censors aimed at shielding children from anything that even remotely could be considered harmful or offensive to potential educational consumers. I had heard a few "Ripley's Believe It or Not" stories about this phenomenon -- for example, a university colleague of mine who had written a widely used high school civics text told me recently how he was asked by a California textbook review board to eliminate a diagram depicting the classic "layer cake" model of American federalism, lest it encourage kids to eat junk food -- but only after seeing Ravitch's book did I realize just how far this sort of lunacy had gone. The book meticulously documents its argument with an enormous amount of scholarly evidence, and equally meticulously tries to demonstrate that both liberals and conservatives are at fault for this problem. Ravitch has no ideological axe to grind here. She takes shots at both political correct feminists and others on the left as well as religious conservatives and others on the right, and anyone in-between who would deny our children a subtantively strong, academically sound education. It is a must-read for anyone concerned about the dumbing down of American education and the movement away from serious, free inquiry in our schools.
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Part of the Problem in our Schools!
By Jason M. Waskiewicz
It would be very simplistic to blame all of the problems in America's schools on the textbooks. However, it is realistic to say that the textbooks are a big part of the problem.
Many teachers rely heavily on the textbook to create their course. This is due either to lack of ability or to state law. Certain states (California and Texas among them) mandate the adoption of specific books or, at least, limit the options.
Good books are necessary in such an environment. We need books that the intelligent student can learn from and which will engage the less able student. Unfortunately, our textbooks are almost universally poor.
There are many reasons, and Ravitch has limited her discussion to the writing style of the texts. She focuses mainly on History and Literature.
In order to avoid offending groups at both ends of the political spectrum, textbooks have become heavily sanitized mush. Offensive words or concepts are eliminated.
The right wing conspiracy (of which I'm a member) has complained for years about left wing censorship while happily engaging in the same sort of activity.
The left wing mandates multiculturalism to ridiculous extremes. There must be gender and racial balance in illustrations, stories, authors, and illustrators. At the same time, the right wing demands stories that show children always obeying their parents, no evolution, no sorcery, and other such things.
Taken together, the flavor and interest of textbooks is gone. My students tell me how boring the books are to read, and they're right. I have taken the extreme step of writing my own textbooks because there are so few decent texts out there.
Ravitch has identified and articulated what I had felt instinctively. Furthermore, she has provided the research and the facts to back herself up. This book provides evidence of the problem. It is for this that I rate it five stars. No one can argue with it. The facts are plain.
We can argue over whether it is a bad thing. She claims it is, and I agree, but that is an opinion. That it is happening is a fact.
67 of 75 people found the following review helpful.
Censorship and politial correctness are everywhere
By Richard Munro
THE LANGUAGE POLICE is a good read and a fascinating read recommended to anyone who is interested in the "censorship" of style and content of the politically correct be they of special interest groups of the left or right. With the LANGUAGE POLICE, Diane Ravitch may have struck a powerful blow for education, common sense and freedom of expression in America a cherished first amendment right which could be eroded and undone word by word by unelected "committees" of political correctness.
The range of research and quotations is impressive covering a wide swath of famous authors present and past whose works have been banned or quietly bowdlerized or edited by testing companies and publishers without comment. Ravitch quotes an indignant Ray Bradbury who became aware of bowdlerized versions of his book Fahrenheit 451.I like the lists of censored books and the CENSORSHIP on the LEFT chapter particularly the quote on Mark Twain. Ravitch never wrote anything truer: "...Teachers and students alike must learn to grapple with this novel WHICH THEY CANNOT DO UNLESS THEY READ IT." Ravitch quotes Orwell " Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?" Has it every occurred to anyone that insipid dumbed down texts play a role in school house boredom and low achievement? Ravitch's well-researched APPENDIX of BANNED WORDS and PHRASES was great (but chilling). "Sportsmanship" and "lumberjack" are out -VERBOTEN- in favor of the gender neutral and extremely weak and uncommunicative "SPORTING CONDUCT" and "WOOD-CUTTER". As a language teacher I am concerned when words that are to found in HUNDREDS of classic literary tales and thousands if not millions of English-language books are not taught thus handicapping a generation of readers who will simply lack the vocabulary to read independently. If you think about on it, it just makes no sense and hurts the education of kids.
At the end of the book the sampler of classic literature compiled with Rodney Atkinson a well-respected teacher specialist in children's literature- was very well done not just another bloomin' list but commentaries to help remind us of the book or poem we may have forgotten or encourage us to read it or suggest others read these classics of cultural literacy a la E.D. Hirsch.
The bottom line is the LANGUAGE POLICE by DIANE RAVITCH is a good read, entertaining, informative, and worthy as a reference and a guide for the citizen, the reformer, parents and educators alike. Censored books mean bad books that suppress the truth. Untruthful, garbled text books make for bad scholars and bad teachers. Why should anyone care? Bored and low-achieving students could affect the survival and success of American democracy as well as our political and economic stability.
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