SBOE rejects proposal to fact check textbooks
Source: Houston Chronicle
SBOE rejects proposal to fact check textbooks
By Lauren McGaughy
Updated 6:17 pm, Wednesday, November 18, 2015
AUSTIN - The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday narrowly voted down a proposal to have university professors fact check state-approved textbooks.
"While I am disappointed with the vote on my amendment, we did adopt other amendments that will strengthen our process," said Thomas Ratliff, the Mount Pleasant Republican behind the proposal. "It's a step in the right direction, just not as big a step as I had hoped for."
Texas textbooks long have been plagued by controversy. The board last year OK'd the first new state-approved social studies textbooks in a dozen years, but activists criticized them for presenting biased characterizations on everything from climate change and religion to immigration and economics.
Earlier this year, the mother of a high school freshman from Katy complained about a passage found in one of these recently-approved books that referred to African slaves as "workers." The online version of the McGraw-Hill book was later changed, but not before the story went viral nationally.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/texas-textbooks-errors-fact-check-slaves-houston-6641888.php
(My emphasis.)
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Texas rejects letting academics vet public school textbooks
Will Weissert, Associated Press
Updated 5:51 pm, Wednesday, November 18, 2015
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Top Texas education officials rejected Wednesday letting university experts fact-check textbooks approved for use in public-school classrooms statewide, instead reaffirming a vetting system that has helped spark years of ideological battles over how potentially thorny lessons in history and science are taught.
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.
Republican board member Thomas Ratliff had proposed bringing in academics to check textbooks only for factual errors, but his measure failed 8-7 after lengthy discussion.
"I know people are concerned about pointy-headed liberals in the ivory tower making our process different or worse," Ratliff, of Mount Pleasant, said before the vote. "But I hold our institutions of higher education in fairly high regard."
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Texas-may-let-academics-check-textbooks-for-6640763.php
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