Groups still pushing for changes to Texas social studies textbooks
A week before the State Board of Education is set to adopt new social studies textbooks for Texas public schools for the first time in a dozen years, groups that have taken issue with the books’ content still are calling on some publishers to make revisions.
Academics and environmental education groups reiterated an argument Wednesday that elementary and intermediate school social studies textbooks by mega-publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson contain “inaccurate and misleading information about climate change” and the role humans have played in it. They also warned that adopting the texts as they are now could have national implications because Texas — as one of the country’s most populous states with one of the largest textbook markets — has a major influence on the textbooks that end up in schools in many other states...
The 15-member elected education board will adopt social studies textbooks for all grades on Nov. 21, along with hundreds of other instructional materials covering other subject areas, including online tools. The books will be used for at least a half-dozen years, if not longer, and will appear in classrooms starting next fall. The public will have another chance to comment on the textbooks Tuesday before the education board takes its final vote later in the week.
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Two of the four publishers that the left-leaning education watchdog group Texas Freedom Network targeted in September over climate change-related issues in their textbooks have since made sufficient changes, a spokesman for the group said. However, the other two — McGraw-Hill and Pearson — have not, Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said Wednesday, contending that the companies are unwilling to do so because they are trying to increase their odds of gaining approval from an education board that used to be dominated by staunchly conservative Republicans.
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