In an open state, individual school districts are free to choose the textbooks they want to use, but in a closed state a textbook cannot be selected unless it is on the state-approved list.

Much of the debate about educational reform is centered on school choice.  However, there is another important issue which desperately needs to be addressed; how classroom textbooks are chosen. In the United States, 90% of classroom instruction revolves around textbooks. Most people perceive the material in textbooks as authoritative, accurate, and necessary. Many teachers rely on them to organize lessons and structure subject matter.  But by relying solely on a textbook, weak teachers bestow on this one resource the greatest influence over the curriculum. 

Textbook “selection” or “adoption,” is decided by the individual states.   In an open state, individual school districts are free to choose the textbooks they want to use. In a closed state, a state textbook committee chooses its textbooks and if a textbook is not approved, then state funds cannot be used to make a purchase. This creates a powerful competition among publishers to produce a “politically correct,” “adoptable” book which ends up dull, devoid of the context for most content, and low in quality.

Although there are only 22 states with the closed model for text selection, it is these states which ultimately influence the types of books offered by the publishers and produced for sale to schools everywhere in our country.  This is because it is closed state adoption guidelines which get taken into consideration by the largest textbook publishers when deciding which textbooks will be published and sold in this great land of ours.  As a matter of fact, the needs of the largest closed states, CA, FL and TX, exert undue influence over these publishers.

Some of the basic criteria considered in textbook adoption include whether there are minority authors listed and readability formulas to keep the writing at an appropriate level of difficulty. The bottom line is the publishers need to make a profit on the sale of their textbooks.  To assure a sale, heavily edited textbooks end up written by committees, not the contributing scholars.

How did the textbook industry get to this point?  There are many reasons.  Ethnic groups fought their negative portrayal by publishers of textbooks.  Southern states eliminated local school board control of textbook purchases so that any ideas which threatened Southern culture or their own view of history couldn’t be taught in the schools.  Some states passed laws prohibiting textbooks that didn’t portray our nation’s history positively. Civil rights organizations forced school boards to withdraw racially biased texts.   Hispanics, homosexuals, and other groups petitioned to be represented fairly in texts.

Today, many educators, policymakers, and parents advocate more traditional teaching approaches that emphasize teaching specific content over exploratory learning. Critics object to the lowering of academic standards resulting from politically correct texts. Texts used in subjects such as social studies and language arts are at the center of debate over which body of facts should be transmitted through them. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results show that “closed” states rank amongst the lowest performing states, whereas “open” states are the NAEP’s top performers.

There is an obvious need for publishers to diversify and find new ways to meet varied demands.  Technology could allow schools to customize their own books. Educators could select from a menu of chapters or sections to satisfy their particular curricular needs.  A free textbook market, not constrained by political agendas or bureaucracy would harness the creativity of independent scholars to produce cutting edge curriculum. 

My own experience as an independent trying to create a curriculum for use by the schools has been less than encouraging and quite frankly, very difficult.  There are significant roadblocks to trying to “buck the system.” Unexpected adversity stems from the difficulty in getting a grant if you are not a PhD affiliated with an institution of higher learning. But I continue to forge ahead with my Constitutional Literacy curriculum because like many others in light of 9/11, I have grown concerned that, “without a common history or national identity, the very essence of the United States and its credo, E pluribus Unum — out of many, one — will be lost.”