Ukrainian famine, a specific unit on the Ukrainian famine, be included, I think this is a tremendous opportunity that we should try to take advantage of.

Dr. KUROPAS: I think that’s really unrealistic at this point because textbook publishers publish once every two to three years, and most textbook publishers look to two states, the State of Texas and the State of California, which are the two states that buy the most textbooks and which, indeed, have state regulations, state-wide regula¬tions.

So for better or for worse, other states are stuck with what Texas and California
demand out of their textbooks.

I think what we need to do is to look long range and to see if we can get both Texas and California to begin to demand in future textbooks, because most of their textbooks we’re looking at now are published, and I can’t imagine any publisher who has hundreds of thousands already printed revising them to put in, you know, the Uk¬rainian famine, but I think two or three years hence this is something we might be able to do.

Mr. MARCHISHIN: What I’m thinking about is I’m not sure it’s completely un¬realistic at all at this point because the State of California recently rejected a whole series of science textbooks, if I recall, because they were getting away from the teach¬ing of evolution, and they rejected a whole list of textbooks that were submitted to them.
I’m not suggesting that the whole list of textbooks relating to history and social studies, that they would have to be rewritten. However, if it could be required by the state that a specific unit on the Ukrainian famine be included as an addendum, you know, as a stapled-on type of addendum, sent out with each textbook, I think this is a realistic possibility.

Dr. KUROPAS: Also, you may want to look to state legislators. I know that in the State of Illinois, and in all states, the state legislature can mandate certain curriculum items. I know that in the State of Illinois, for example, it was mandated that at the eighth-grade level they teach about the contributions of all ethnic groups. Every school by state law must provide that particular unit. How they do it is entirely up to the school. So you can have ancillary units developed by local people to fulfill that mandate, but it seems to me it would be easier to go through a state legislature to get them to introduce items such as that into the law.

Dr. WERES: California did start with the Roos-Calderon Act, which was a bill that was passed by the state legislature instructing the Department of Education to set up a committee to review and make recommendations related to teaching about the Holocaust and other major incidents of genocide. So we have gone through that route, and we’re in the implementation stage right now.
It’s not a matter of supplementary or stapled-on type of materials. It’s a matter of, you know, making recommendations to publishers, what the state would like to see in the next edition.
Mr. MARCHISHIN: But they wouldn’t be available?
Dr. WERES: Well, I don’t know. I’m too distant from the day-to-day things. I don’t know.
Mr. MARCHISHIN: Okay. Is there any other question or discussion? Go ahead.