National scale of new curriculums
March 17, 2010Questions arise as the state looks to alter social studies textbooks
By Laura Remson
Staff writer
As news of the vote for possible amendments to the Texas State Board of Education social studies curriculum disseminates, questions are being raised as to the national impact of these decisions.
Because Texas is the largest consumer of public school textbooks in the nation, it holds a power over national publishers and the content they produce for other states.
Neal Frey is the president and senior textbook analyst for Educational Research Analysts, a conservative Christian organization that reviews public school textbooks. He spends much of his time looking over books that have been submitted into the Textbook Review and Adoption Process.
"Texas is one of 22 states that has a state textbook approval process," Frey said.
"Texas is one of the two biggest states, because of the size of Texas textbook purchases. The textbook market of Texas is very important to publishers," Frey said. "Publishers tells us that, of the two largest states, the other being California, most other states prefer textbooks that are written to Texas standards because the other states say they feel like Texas textbook rules are clearer and more reasonable than California's."
He explained that recently California withdrew from the state textbook approval process until at least 2016, making Texas a default monopoly on new textbook content.
"Publishers are going to take very seriously whatever Texas finally concludes upon," Frey said. "Publishers are going to revise their textbooks quite closely according to Texas standards. Then they will market these books to other states across the nation."
Sherry Smith, director of purchasing for Waco Independent School District, isn't sure the exact reasoning for Texas' influence over publishers.
"It's just the number of kids," Smith said. "Because the size of [Texas] and our population, publishers are going to hear our needs so they can sell books to us. And the rest of the nation just kind of has to deal with it and deal with what Texas wants because they want to sell to Texas because that's where the money is. We're the biggest volume user from what I understand ... You
