Students Shortchanged by Textbooks

The State Board of Education (SBOE) will hold a public hearing Sept. 6 to hear testimony on the adoption of science textbooks for middle and high schools.

A review of the middle school textbooks by members of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Texas Public Policy Foundation reviewers revealed errors, omissions and bias. (High school textbooks reviews are not completed). This lead dozens of citizens, many of them members of Texas CSE, to ask the SBOE that they be allowed to appear at the hearing. Their requests were received after the August 7 deadline. (Only one individual had requested to testify prior to the deadline.) The SBOE will consider a motion to allow late registrants to appear before board at the Sept. 6 hearing.

“The school children of Texas deserve facts about our world and how it works. Unfortunately the textbook adoption process has resulted in inaccurate, biased and incomplete texts that shortchange our children and deny them the education they deserve. In fact, at times these texts read like manifestos rather than textbooks,” according to Peggy Venable, director of Texas CSE.

While the textbook review process should be addressed, the immediate question is whether the elected members of the SBOE will adopt the textbooks under consideration. Some examples of bias and error in the textbooks found by reviewers include:

One textbook under consideration blames ‘much of the hunger in the world’ on ‘profit-driven food management’.

The 8th grade Ron Jones Teacher’s Edition says that the ‘rapid growth of the Earth’s population’ causes destruction of forests and increased pollution, without any mention of the greater supply of food, better technologies and life-saving medicines which are result of technology advances. It also urges children to live in used homes rather than build new ones. A review of this textbook can be found online at http://www.cse.org/action/teachers_edition.htm.

The 7th grade Prentice Hall Texas Science Explorer explains how air pollution creates acid rain and then states that acid rain causes very rapid chemical weathering, a statement that cannot be substantiated by science. See http://www.cse.org/action/prentice_hall_texas_science_explorer1.htm for more.

The SBOE hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Sept. 6 in the William B. Travis Building, Room 1-104, 1701 North Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas. Phone 512- 463-8985.