Alva Review-Courier -

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Civil War lessons taught to American students often depend on where the classroom is, with schools presenting accounts of the conflict that vary from state to state and even district to district.

Some schools emphasize states' rights in addition to slavery and stress how economic and cultural differences stoked tensions between North and South. Others highlight the battlefield acumen of Confederate commanders alongside their Union counterparts. At least one suggests that abolition represented the first time the nation lived up to its founding ideals.

The differences do...