Texas Narrowly Rejects Allowing Academics To Fact-Check Public School Textbooks (csmonitor.com)

jriding writes with news that in a 8-7 vote the Texas State Board of Education rejected a plan to create a group of state university professors to fact-check textbooks approved for the state's 5.2 million public-school students. The CS Monitor reports: "The Board of Education approves textbooks in the nation's second-largest state and stood by its vetting process — despite a Houston-area mother recently complaining that a world geography book used by her son's ninth grade class referred to African slaves as 'workers.' The publisher, McGraw-Hill Education, apologized and moved to make immediate edits."

Comments

Fer sure

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Whah, hail no!!! We don' want none o' them smarty pants egghead perfessers and braniacs messing' with our beloved holy sacred bullshit stories, or where will it end?

Purty soon lil' Johnny and Janey won't be believin' that this here Earth is flat an' was given to us personally by Jebus Christ hisself!!

And the so-called "slaves", they wuzn't slaves, they wuz "involuntary happy helpers" who got free food and shelter!

Not only that, but mah ancestors hunted dinosaurs with a flintlock way back when, it sez so in mah Holy Book, Not that OTHER filthy dirty lyin' FAKE "holy book" that those differnt' lookin' peeple read from, 'cuz they's all goin' ta' HAIL when they die, yes siree, mah pappy done tol' me so.

Surely You're Joking

[Rob Lister]

In his subjectively honest autobiography "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", Richard Feynman devotes a chapter (Judging Books by Their Covers) to this and related issues in textbooks. The truth of the matter is the books go mostly un-reviewed. Sure, they hire teams of committees to review them, but more likely than not, nobody on any committee so much as opens them up, much less fact-checks them. They are however lavished with free dinners, vacations, and other graf. The book deals are worth millions, after all.

He recounts when he was on such a committee and was unable to get a criticism in edgewise.

Now, add some religion, politics and general bureaucratic incompetence to that and what you end up with is an all but worthless textbook and a keen hope for a teacher that can teach around it.

Meh. My kids are grown and gone. I wish them luck.

You actually did

[rsilvergun]

or at least I did. My economics course in High School was a propaganda platform for capitalism. There was no discussion of other competing systems, even in a bad light. Nor was there any criticism of capitalism whatsoever. Looking back it's more than a little disturbing. I was very clearly being indoctrinated into a certain way of thinking. We can argue whether it was the right or wrong way to think, but it's still indoctrination, and I was still being encouraged to accept something on 100% faith in what was supposed to be a place of learning...

Re:Fact check or PC checking?

[cdrudge]

The actual wording of the textbook reads:

The African Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.

While that alone may technically be accurate, it's a great mischaracterization of the situation. It's even more egregious because the section of the book it's in is under "Patterns of Immigration". It's not really immigration when it's a forced migration to a place you're not even recognized as a full human let alone any chance, at that time, of being a citizen.

Re:Not just money

[Jason Levine]

And with the Charter schools it becomes a vicious cycle.

1. Charter school takes public school money.
2. Charter school only takes in "good" students (e.g. not kids with low grades or with difficulties that would require extra assistance).
3. Students with "difficulties" are left in the public schools who have less money to help them.
4. Charter schools get better test scores than public schools. (Since they get to pick and choose not only what students they take but what test results they publish.)
5. Businesses that run charter schools profit and donate money to politicians.
6. Politicians call for more charter schools and to close public schools.
7. Repeat 1 - 6.

Unfortunately, we're seeing this in action in NY and it's not pretty.

Re:That's because you took Economics not PolySci

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually capitalism comes out really badly in many sectors when looked at from an economics point of view. Particularly natural monopolies (eg: utilities), or where there is no real competition (eg: emergency heath services).