I have to give Lynne Cheney, the vice president’s wife and director of the National Endowment for the Humanities during the Reagan and H.W. Bush years, credit for keeping a relatively low profile. I expected otherwise four years ago.
Cheney has been a successful conservative activist for years — long before her husband was even named to Bush’s ticket — including her ongoing work at the American Enterprise Institute and frequent appearances before groups like the Christian Coalition. Once her husband was running the executive branch, I mean, serving as Bush’s VP, I assumed she’d be exerting her influence publicly and advancing her conservative agenda through the administration. For the most part, her efforts have been understated and behind the scenes. I suspect most Americans probably don’t even know who Lynne Cheney is.
Nevertheless, the “Second Lady” is exerting herself on issues that are important to her and the conservative elite.
The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed.
In June, during a routine update, the Education Department began distributing a new edition of a 10-year-old how-to guide called “Helping Your Child Learn History.” Aimed at parents of children from preschool through fifth grade, the 73-page booklet presented an assortment of advice, including taking children to museums and visiting historical sites.
The booklet included several brief references to the National Standards for History, which were developed at UCLA in the mid-1990s with federal support. Created by scholars and educators to help school officials design better history courses, they are voluntary benchmarks, not mandatory requirements.
Lynne Cheney doesn’t have a formal job in the federal government and yet she’s quietly making sure federal agencies destroy public materials she doesn’t like? This is a problem.
Cheney’s beef with the National Standards for History are that they aren’t “pro-America” enough. The standards make note of less pleasant aspects of our history (slavery, McCarthyism, etc.), which Cheney would prefer to see replaced with more uplifting stories (Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers).
After criticism came from the far-right in the 1990s, the UCLA standards were heavily revised, pleasing nearly everyone. Except Lynne Cheney.
Usually, the brochures in question are sent out to school districts without controversy. This year was different.
[W]hen her office spotted the references to the National Standards for History in the new edition of the history booklet, her staff communicated its displeasure to the Education Department.
Subsequently, the department decided it was necessary to kill the new edition and reprint it with references to the standards removed. Though about 61,000 copies of “Helping Your Child Learn History” had been distributed, the remaining 300,000-plus copies were destroyed.
The LA Times, which obtained a copy of the original brochure before Cheney had it pulled from public view, asked the Education Department for an explanation for why the materials were published, then recalled, then destroyed. Initially, the agency said it was pulled because of “mistakes, including typos and incomplete information.” Shortly thereafter, the Department admitted this wasn’t true and acknowledged that complaints from Cheney’s office moved the Education Department to act.
The problems here are multifold. One, the Department of Education is not supposed to be taking marching orders from an activist at a think tank, who happens to be married to the vice president. Two, Cheney is not an elected official and shouldn’t be throwing her weight around to meddle in American education policy. That’s way outside her non-existent job description.
And, finally, the materials Cheney had destroyed happened to be valuable to schools and parents.
According to Michelle M. Herczog, a consultant in history and social sciences for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the standards have become a resource for many states in developing curriculum guidelines. They are also used to develop textbooks.
“Why the U.S. Department of Education would take that out of a federal document for parents is just beyond me,” said Herczog, who was not involved in the development of the standards.
I can’t wait to hear the White House’s spin on this.