Thursday, August 10, 2006

Reasons to Avoid Government Schools - Part 2

Continuing on from Reasons to Avoid Government Schools - Part 1

Textbooks are badly written (and too expensive). Just as there are almost numberless examples of waste in public education, there are almost endless examples of problems with school textbooks.

Middle-School Texts Don't Make the Grade reported on an extensive review of current science textbooks. This report stated that "...none of the 12 most popular middle-school physical science texts was acceptable."

Here a a few examples found in science textbooks:

* Mass and weight were often confused.

* Isaac Newton's first law was often incorrectly stated

* Examples illustrating Isaac Newton's third law were wrong

* Word such as "speed," "velocity," and "acceleration" were often confused

* The depictions of light passing through a prism were often incorrect.

* Electrical circuits were frequently drawn improperly

* The scientific approach was not described in any of the popular books reviewed

* Political correctness is often more important than scientific accuracy: Middle-school text publishers now employ more people to censor books for content that might offend any organized lobbying group than they do to check facts


I know someone with a strong science background that worked as a substitute at a local high school. One day, he was asked to work in a class that was taking a multiple choice science test. Since he had nothing else to do during the testing time, he took the test himself. The substitute quickly found that three questions did not have a possible correct answer. He wrote the question numbers on the board and told the class to skip those questions.

The next day he was called into the principals office. He was in trouble. The principal explained that this test had been used by the science department for three years. They knew that the questions were not entirely accurate, but they felt their students were not sophisticated enough to understand certain concepts, like "the difference between buoyancy and density." He was flabbergasted.

The next day he was substituting in the same class. He began the class with a short explanation of the difference between buoyancy and density. The class had the concept down in only a few minutes.


Here are another tidbit from the report:

The general reading level has deteriorated markedly over the last 20-40 years. The publishers, as noted later, have responded to this by dropping the level of science texts. Cornell professor Donald Hayes on results of sampling 788 textbooks used between 1860 and 1992 said, "Honors high school texts are no more difficult than an eighth grade reader was before World War II."

Note: The report, entitled Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts, was funded by a grant from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation.


Hillsdale College published an article called K-12 Establishment is Putting America’s Industrial Leadership at Risk in the February 2005 edition of Imprimis.

"In 2003, the American Association for the Advancement of Science rated less than ten percent of middle school math books to be acceptable, and no science books."


Now moving along to history text books. The following are excerpts from U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Intellectual Diversity. September 24, 2003. Testimony of Gilbert T. Sewall, American Textbook Council, New York, NY

The first history textbook problem is what educators, critics and journalists informally refer to as "dumbing down." Many history textbooks reflect lowered sights for general education.

They (publishers) make books whose content is meant to suit the sensitivities of groups and causes more interested in self-promotion than in historical fact, scholarly appraisal, or balance.

At worst, biased instructional materials are undermining students' appreciation for America and citizenship.



The Textbook Letter, May-June 1995 has a good examples of text book absurdity in a middle school history book called Peoples and Places in World History.

While the chapter deals with ancient Egypt, the writers have injected a "Think It Over" question that pertains to a current controversy over the protection of desert tortoises in the southwestern United States: "Ravens often make desert tortoises their meal. Some people suggest killing the ravens. Do you think this is right? Why should a tortoise have a better claim to life than a raven?"

Like children are going to learn about ancient Egypt by discussing killing birds in the southwestern United States. It is a blatant attempt to manipulation the opinions of children on political matters.


A very good book on the problems of bias in textbooks is The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch.

Here are a few excerpts:

The literature textbooks for middle school and high school from the major publishers are compilations of odds and ends. The books are litteredwith non-literary features, such as an essay on homelessness or air pollution. One [book] teaches students how to read a weather map, a time line,and a telephone book.

One book published by Prentice-Hall . . . has an excerpt from a script of a once popular television program, Xena: Warrior Princess. This script would not qualify as ‘literature’ by any standard other than the one in which absolutely everything in print is ‘literature.’

In a significant variation on the cultural equivalence theme, Houghton Mifflin’s world history text for middle students implies that every worldculture is wonderful except for the United States. . . . Compared to other cultures of the world, the United States sounds like a frightening place. Why people keep trying to immigrate to this unwelcoming, mean-spirited culture is a puzzle.

In an appendix, The Language Police provides a list, almost 30 pages long, of banned words, usages, stereotypes, and topics. For example:

- Bubbler (banned as regional bias, replace with water fountain).

- Pollyanna ( banned as sexist, replace with optimist).

- Balance names like Mary, John, and Jane with names such as Jose, Lashunda, Che, Ling.

- Avoid butter or pies in texts [i.e., promote a healthy diet in conformity with someone’s diet pyramid].

- Avoid dinosaurs (implies evolution).


Textbooks in science and mathematics grew fatter as publishers added biographies of mathematicians and scientists who were women, AfricanAmericans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and people with disabilities. Students became used to seeing sidebars about social issues intheir textbooks, even when they were irrelevant to the lessons.

My sister, who at the time had 4 children, discovered problems with her daughter's math textbook. It promoted zero population growth. The message my niece got was that the world would have been a much better place if only her youngest brother and sister had never been born. My sister later told me that she never dreamed she would need to screen her daughter's math book.



Last year a bill went through the California Assembly, AB 756, to "Prohibits the State Board of Education (SBE) and the governing board of any local education agency (LEA) from adopting any instructional material that exceeds 200 pages in length."


It looks like politicians are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

One of the wonderful things about homeschooling is that we are not tied to textbooks. We normally use "real" books. Regardless, we use lots of books with more than 200 pages. There is a wealth of wonderful materials available to homeschoolers with a rich vocabulary and substantial content.


See Reasons to Avoid Government Schools - Part 3 and Part 4


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13 comments:

Janine Cate said...

Thank you so much. I had a bad day and was wondering if all this research was worth it.

Janine Cate said...

I went back and added to the post information on The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch.

Robert M. Lindsey said...

Every drag-racer wannabe kid knows the difference between speed and acceleration (aka quickness). Actually, so does John Madden, so I would assume "dumb" jocks do too.

Alastriona, The Cats and Dogs said...

Having "reviewed" endless American History and Lit books for a High School Level course I can honestly say that my 1st choice for an American History textbook was written in 1937 by John D Hicks, The Federal Union (Third Editon). The only problem is it only covers the period from 1492 till 1877. But it's very well written. Textbooks today or so dumbed down it's not even funny. I have seen High School Level Books a second grader should be able to read.

Janine Cate said...

In general, we find that older books are better written.

The problem with the science text books is that the people writing the books don't understand the information. The writers are choosen because they know how to use the popular politically correct words the school districts are looking for.

Anonymous said...

I think this is an argument less about public school textbooks than textbooks in general. Private schools also may use these materials. In my own experience, the texts used at the private school my 3rd child attended were inferior to those used by the public schools. Of course, that was in the day before the adoption of the SRA Open Court series...

Henry Cate said...

Currently the government through public schools buys about 90% of the market. This greatly determines what options private schools have.

If public schools continue to decline in enrollment, then at some point the market will pay more attention to private schools and homeschoolers. There'll be a tipping point when the economies of scale make it profitable for publishing companies to address a market where the consumers are more demanding. This is happening now, but I think there will be greater growth over the next ten years.

Jennifer said...

Thanks so much for your great info. I love stopping by and reading when I can. Makes me even more thankful we will be homeschooling!

Anonymous said...

While faulty textbooks are an interesting and valid topic, it seems incredibly irresponsible to build a case on the logic that the homeschooling parent would choose superior materials to teach from.

This blog seems to primarily contain information designed to rationalize the homeschooling choice on the basis that public schools have faults - all the while glossing over the potential faults of homeschooling itself (which may well outnumber those based on centuries of research and armies of professionals).

A mindset so lacking in objectivity seems inappropriate for building the future of one's child.

Henry Cate said...

Anonymous: public schools have only been around about 140 years. You might find it instructive to check out Horace Mann. There is not centuries of research in "public schools." Homeschoolers do take advantage of educational research.

I think you would be much less impressed with the "professionals" if you read something like Inside American Education. You might be incredibly enlightened to read how the "professionals" are trained in Ed School Follies. Another great book is Left Back: A Century of Battles over School Reform which shows on the "professionals" lurched from one reform to another, some times every three to four years.

I'll take any day the potential for slight problems with homeschooling over the reality of the huge problems with public schools.

Dodie Herrmann said...

Wow, I really enjoyed that! I threw out the textbooks years ago. Give my Genevieve Foster any time, or any other enjoyable but educational reading.

Susannah said...

This is a very informative post; it makes me glad that we don't use textbooks. On a side note, I have read that when John Saxon first came out with his math books, they were rejected by public schools on the grounds that they "do not promote feminism".

Janine Cate said...

Why does that not surprise me?