Another Textbook Myth

The Texas Tribune's Brian Thevonot has a terrific post up about textbook myths, number one being that what goes into Texas' textbooks drives the market nationwide and gets forced on other states. That used to be true because we are such a big market, and publishers would cater content to whatever our state board of education foisted upon Texas public school children. (You can ride the way back machine back to 2002 here and get a sense of how that used to work, along with a sigh inducing glimpse of past SBOE hijinks with the statewide textbook adoption process.) Modern, digital publishing has flipped that scenario. Textbooks are created with core content that applies nationwide, then content is tweaked according to standards in individual markets.

Thevonot accurately describes how it's not what is in the textbooks that will drive classroom instruction, it's the 60% or so of the TEKS selected in every grade level and content area that will appear on TAKS and end of course exams. If it's not on TAKS or EOC's, it may or may not be taught.

There's one more textbook myth that I've been meaning to blog, and it's that textbooks are actually used to any real extent in Texas classrooms. I've been in an out of many elementary, middle and high school classrooms over the past three years and the usual scenario is that a classroom set of textbooks is sitting on a shelf somewhere in the room, occasionally used when there is a sub, along with an accompanying worksheet ripped out of a supplementary textbook resource.

If you are a parent with a school age child, you may or may not see textbooks come home with your child - maybe a math textbook, right? But otherwise, when you ask, "where is your textbook?" when you are pulling your hair out trying to get your kid to study, the answer is usually, "in my locker - we never use them" or "we only have a classroom set, MOM" with accompanying eye rolling.

Many millions of dollars are in each year's Texas state budget for textbooks, and school districts in the past were required to buy one textbook per student from a SBOE approved list.  Each subject area gets a new textbook every ten years. In 2010, schools get new English Language Arts textbooks, tailored to the TEKS adopted in 2008 by the SBOE in a contentious fight waged by the far right majority on the board.

The good news for textbook adoption in Texas beginning this year with the ELA textbooks, is that school districts are required to buy only one classroom set of textbooks, and they can be digital textbooks. Districts still get the same amount of money for textbooks (enough for one book per student), but they can spend the remainder of their money - after purchasing the classrooms sets - on supporting hardware and technology to go with the digital textbooks (such as laptops or netbooks), or they can purchase more hardcopy textbooks, up to a maximum of one textbook per student.

There's an interesting twist - the electronic textbooks are selected and approved by the Commissioner of Education, not the State Board of Education. For those who are not fans of the SBOE, don't get too excited. The education commissioner is appointed by the Governor, meaning our current commissioner, Robert Scott, is Rick Perry's guy, and will not cowboy off away from Perry's Christian conservative agenda, if he wants to keep his job. (This is just another reason why elections matter, and we need to elect Bill White as our governor.)

How are students learning material right now in classrooms, if they are not using textbooks? Mostly through teacher created powerpoints, or powerpoints found on the internet (that may or may not exactly match the TEKS.) Currently, students are not able to do a lot of learning by searching the internet, or going to a teacher approved site, because there aren't enough computers for every student.

There's reason to be hopeful about electronic textbooks, as they will enable Texas public school children to dig into learning the way the grown up world does, through materials that are hyperlinked to original sources, videos, interviews, etc. I think school districts are going to take the state up on this option, and I'm eager to see how that changes teaching and learning in Texas.