Minorities Oppose New School Texts : Education: Several groups argue that state-approved social studies books still fail to give a broad enough multicultural picture.

Black, Latino, Asian, Jewish and Arab-American speakers asked San Diego city schools trustees on Tuesday not to adopt a new set of social studies textbooks for elementary and middle-school grades, even for a limited one-year test.

Although the new texts may represent a vast improvement over traditional histories that ignore or stereotype minorities and religious groups, the speakers said the books fail to fully address the role of ethnic groups in American history or recognize non-European societies in world history.

The debate begun Tuesday before the school board mirrors that across the United States and particularly in California, where the state Department of Education last year adopted the Houghton Mifflin publishing company series as meeting state requirements for promoting cultural diversity and the contributions of men and women of various ethnic groups.

In the largest sense, the debate is over whether the increasing number of nonwhites in public schools can feel a part of the American experience if texts concentrate on European culture and minimize the contributions of other races.

That argument is countered by those who emphasize the improvements in new texts as well as the need to emphasize the European origins of American culture.

For board president Shirley Weber, the basic problem “is that the books are very Eurocentric . . . viewing the world from one set of eyes, and not from a multicultural perspective.”

Weber, a professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University, said she will vote no on the proposed pilot at 53 city schools when the plan comes before trustees for final approval next week.

Although she conceded progress over previous textbooks, she said the improvements are not enough, especially since she believes a one-year pilot will inevitably lead to total adoption of the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade books next year.

“And teachers will use the texts (as if they were) a Bible” without proper reference to any supplementary materials that the publisher might develop to try to address district concerns, Weber said.

“Teachers are not trained in multiculturalism . . . at San Diego State or anywhere else” so they would not be comfortable in deviating from the texts, Weber added.

Weber’s colleagues gave no indication Tuesday of how they will vote next week, expressing their dilemma of wanting substantive textual changes and at the same time acknowledging the limited leverage they have to force major revisions.

Among the state’s largest districts, the mammoth Los Angeles Unified adopted the texts last month along with the Long Beach city schools. San Francisco and Sacramento are undecided as yet, San Diego Supt. Tom Payzant said.

Payzant said that, should the board turn down the social studies series, the district would not have the money or staff to come up with its own books to replace current outmoded texts. The state will pay the multimillion-dollar cost of the texts only if they are books approved by the Department of Education.

Basic Education Director Kermeen Fristrom said that, although Houghton Mifflin is willing to work with the district in changing some factual errors and supplying additional materials on multicultural history, it probably would not want to make fundamental revisions, given the $18 million already invested in the textbooks series.

Board members asked Fristrom to invite a representative of the publisher to appear before them next week.

“These books are not perfect, and may try to do too much, but are still a quantum leap forward . . . in my 25 years” as an educator, including time as a history teacher, Payzant said.

But Darryl White, a vice principal at Bell Junior High and president of the Assn. of African-American Educators, said the texts are “not totally truthful, not (with) a variety of perspectives.

“The time is now to dig our heels in” and resist approval, he said.