Posted in Interviews
All textbooks are written from a point of view. The question is, which view? Now we have some answers that should give pause to Christians and others who seek the truth in academic subjects.Here is a short interview with the authors of the book The Trouble With Textbooks - Distorting History and Religion.
Q: You say American textbooks are "flawed," with many the product of "shoddy scholarship." But isn't there also a problem with the way the books are published and sold?
A: Textbooks are adopted at a statewide level in 21 states, including California and Texas. Developing a textbook and getting it adopted in these two major states is so expensive that only those competitors with the deepest pockets stand a chance to succeed.
Three mega-publishers control the K-12 market, meaning that more and more titles are concentrated in fewer hands. Errors in one book now stand a greater chance of replicating themselves across other books because they may originate from the same source.
Q: So how do special interests get their point across?
A: Through the state adoption process and local district textbook selection. It is so expensive to get a book into a classroom that publishers will do their best not to offend various user groups along the way. Publishers' timidity and their reluctance to offend any group result in the dumbing-down of lessons to the lowest common denominator.
Shoddy scholarship also plays a role. Editors and publishers are simply not as vigilant as they should be, and are also under the impression that "experts" from university faculty are unbiased resources.
Q: So they're not real experts?
A: Sometimes the well-credentialed scholars whose names appear as authors of the textbooks have little if anything to do with the actual writing or content of the book.
Prestigious names may have been at one point associated with the publisher. They may have provided an initial outline, provided a cursory read of the material, perhaps an edit, or they may simply have used their scholarly reputation to lend legitimacy to the textbooks.
The workhorses who actually write the text — whether they're in-house writers or employees of a textbook development agency — may have a great deal or little expertise. Publishers also use "chop shops," or development agencies, for a section or an entire book. Staffed mainly with educational specialists and writers, the agencies follow standards and guidelines supplied by the publishers, but subject-matter experts in history, religion, civics and so on can be notably absent.
Q: How can parents get involved if they have concerns about a textbook?
A: We strongly recommend that parents, educators and elected officials pay much closer attention to what is presented in social studies textbooks.
