Saying it would cast a bad light on the textbook adoption process, the board made a decision to not add another level of bureaucracy to the process.
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They also took issue with a provision in the amendment that said the state’s education commissioner could appoint Texas-based academics to the panel, with at least one board member noting the “philosophical differences” that often emerge between the board and professors who review proposed textbooks.
The vote comes on the heels of a Houston mother’s social-media revelation that her son’s history textbook referred to slaves as “workers.” “The textbook publishers were put in a hard position”.
Texas Board of Education Chair Donna Bahorich, left, listens to Texas Education Agency counsel Von Byer, right, during a meeing, Wednesday, November 18, 2015, in Austin, Texas.
Texas has dominated the textbook market ever since it started paying the costs of textbooks in full, as long as the book was approved by the Texas Board of Education.
“A number of textbook passages essentially reflect the ideological beliefs of politicians on the state board rather than sound scholarship and factual history”, Kathy Miller, the president of the Fund, said in a statement at the time.
But a few board members disagree on appropriate academic experts.
Republican board member Thomas Ratliff proposed the initial measure to reduce the national controversy over Texas’ textbooks.
“The public perception of our process is not positive and I think we all know that”, said Erika Beltran, a Democrat from Dallas. The outlet reports that “The push for more experts to be involved came after more than a year of controversy over board-sanctioned books’ coverage of global warming, descriptions of Islamic history and terrorism and handling of the Civil War and the importance of Moses and the Ten Commandments to the Founding Fathers”.
Ratliff had noted that a few conservative board members have long stocked review panels with people more concerned with ideology than subject matter expertise.
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“I… don’t understand what it would hurt to have another level of checks and balances when it comes to books that show up in front of our students and in front of our kids and books that tell our narrative – or don’t tell our narrative – properly”, she said.
