History books will tell of Clinton; how much is uncertain

ANDREA HARTER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

In America's Story, the fifth-grade U.S. history book used in many Arkansas public schools, impeached Reconstruction President Andrew Johnson gets two pages of text and a photograph.
Prominently positioned at the bottom of page 438 is a picture of Johnson next to a Senate gallery pass. The ornate script reads: The impeachment of the President. Admit the bearer. March 13, 1868.
It wasn't the first thing mentioned about Johnson, who became the 17th president after Lincoln was assassinated, but it does figure boldly into Reconstruction history because he was the only president until President Clinton to be impeached.
But another came perilously close.
On Jan. 10, 1843, the 10th president, John Tyler, became the first president to face impeachment, with nine charges ranging from corruption and malconduct in office to high crimes and misdemeanors. The resolution to impeach him failed, 83-127.
Tyler's history is deeper than that, as he resigned his Senate seat after refusing to vote to censure "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson.
Tyler doesn't make the cut in America's Story. Jackson does, but his censure doesn't.
Clinton is mentioned in the book , but just barely -- a town-meeting photo and a small paragraph from his first State of the Union address about Russian disarmament. He and three other presidents are crowded into a four-page chapter that catapults students from 1956 to the present.
What will the new books say about Clinton?
Today's kindergartners will get the revised text. Will it be longer, or will page 598, the one with Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright's and President Lyndon B. Johnson's discussions about the Vietnam War be compacted?
Nobody knows.
These Harcourt-Brace books, just two years old, will be used in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County school districts for the next four years. They were published in 1997, bought a year later.
Already, in the current events section, they are out of step with modern history.
The upper grades, where newspapers and magazines supplement the civics and history lessons, students stay in touch with what's going on in Washington.
They have discussions about it.
"We don't watch television about it because I'm afraid they are going to mention the sex part, and that's something I'm not going to explain to them. But we do discuss each day what's going on," says Cathey Dean, a ninth-grade civics teacher at Parker's Chapel High School in Union County.
"These kids are at an age where they can be pretty blunt in their conversations. You can hear it in the halls on occasion. But in front of a teacher they are still embarrassed about open discussion of it," Dean says.
The book she uses, Civics: Responsibilities and Citizenship, has detailed explanations of the Constitution, but Dean says she has to translate that into modern events. Little Rock schools also use that book.
"The kids struggled a long time with the concept that impeachment really didn't force Clinton out of office. I tried to get them to understand it was like a grand jury indictment, but that, frankly, just made some of the kids mad," she says. "Many of the kids here seem to dislike the president, but that just could be overflow attitudes from home. They just want the whole thing to be over. They are sick of it."
But from a teaching standpoint, Dean says the impeachment has brought the Constitution to life.
She says teachers in the lower grades have a harder time, since complex situations have to be delicately explained.
"Sometimes the news has too much information."
Many wholeheartedly agree.
Wanda Ruffins, principal at Crystal Hill Elementary Magnet School, says that she's asked fifth-grade teachers to screen material about the president.
"We get a televised show, called Nick News, that updates the kids on current events, what's going on in the White House and such. I have asked the teachers to review it before turning it on for the class to see," she says.
"Not every parent wants their 10-year-old to have a full discussion on what Clinton is accused of doing in their social studies class," she says.
So they cull the material and rely on the Weekly Reader, a national school magazine graded with information suitable for different age groups.
For the sixth grade, the Weekly Reader Senior Edition posts news flashes on its Internet site about the impeachment.
In its explanation of the event, "A Presidency in Trouble," Clinton's woes are described like this:
"President Clinton is accused of several offenses, including lying under oath to a federal grand jury about a relationship he had with a young White House employee. Lying is wrong, but it is not a crime. Lying before a U.S. court of law, however, is a crime and is called perjury."
In its update, the Weekly Reader posts that the House's action is only the third such maneuver to impeach a president. It counts Richard Nixon's referral, Clinton and Andrew Johnson.
Again, Tyler doesn't make the cut.
The Weekly Reader newspaper is owned by United Kingdom conglomerate Primedia Inc. A spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.
Whether the schools are getting all the tools they need to teach history in the making is uncertain.
Dan Ferritor, a former University of Arkansas chancellor who has returned to teaching, says books can sometimes raise more questions than they answer.
For example, Ferritor's students are studying from a book copyrighted this year, the fourth edition of Essentials of Sociology. Ferritor says even he was surprised to see the photo on page 125, next to a passage on white-collar crime. It's a picture of the late Jim McDougal, a linchpin witness in independent counsel Ken Starr's Whitewater inquiry.
The caption says: "Jim McDougal was convicted of fraud in the Arkansas Whitewater scandal. Sentenced to 2 years in prison, 1 year of house arrest and several million in restitution, this sounds like a stiff penalty for a crime few people are sure they understand.
"However, McDougal and his associates probably made a substantial profit from their illegal activities and his prison sentence does not compensate taxpayers for the government dollars that will ultimately be spent either on prosecuting the crime or on bailing this and other failed savings and loans out ..."
The caption is a clear as mud. Whitewater was not a savings and loan. Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, which is never mentioned, was McDougal's center of operations which financed the Whitewater development in which the Clintons invested. When Madison was declared insolvent, the bailout cost taxpayers more than $60 million.
Ferritor says he's amazed that the book made McDougal an icon for white-collar crime.
"It just goes to show that the teacher must be informed and not just rely on the book," he said.
It seems ironic that material about Clinton, the state's best proponent of education, is so scarce.
Marie McNeal, supervisor of social studies for the Little Rock School District, says students in upper grades, with the guidance of their teachers, are doing more. But, she stresses, the teachers are sticking to the constitutional importance of the events, not what brought them to this point.
"Teachers are very skillful at knowing what they can talk around and how to steer a conversation. I've not heard one single parent complain, and I'm sure in some classrooms they've discussed almost every aspect of the case, as tactfully as possible," McNeal said.
The study of American history begins in the fifth grade and continues until graduation. Arkansas history is integrated with other subjects -- when geography is taught, Arkansas topography is discussed -- through elementary school.
Because Clinton now intersects American and Arkansas history on many planes, the public is interested in what will be written, and when.
Waddy W. Moore, a retired history professor from the University of Central Arkansas at Conway, wrote one of the first state textbooks.
The book, Arkansas, the Land of Opportunity, was published in 1975 and still used in 1988. It guided students from prehistory through former governor and retired U.S. Sen. David Pryor. Because Arkansas history was not a required course until two years ago, much of the history is still being compiled into digestible text.
"Textbooks on history generally have a very short life. They can be outdated overnight, especially in concert with a major event," Moore said.
"I think when the next set of books are written, history will be kind to him, that this will show itself to be a manifestation of the times, of partisan bickering. We've had presidents and leaders who have been everything but exemplary, but didn't have anything really venomous written about them," Moore said.
Little Rock lawyer Phil Anderson thinks, too, that when the next books are written for colleges, Clinton won't bear particular ridicule or scrutiny.
Anderson, president of the American Bar Association, says Clinton will be remembered as one delivering a healthy economy, a whittler of welfare, a supporter of women's and minority groups' rights.
"As far as the Constitutional issues that keep rearing their head, I think they've all been resolved. I really can't say that the legal legacy will be a hot topic" in law school courses.
Law libraries have vast numbers of government history books and essays. But local public libraries can fill in the gaps in history textbooks. Several books, including Facts about the Presidents: from George Washington to Bill Clinton by Joseph Nathan Kane, serve as detailed reference guides for the past.
Even a Funk & Wagnalls 1989 special edition of The Presidents, taken largely from archives of the Saturday Evening Post, can fill in many pre-Clinton blanks.
Tyler's impeachment trial does get a mention here.

This article was published on Sunday, February 14, 1999

RETURN to Clinton Crisis / RETURN to Impeachment & Trial