No academics to fact-check textbooks

The group highlighted a number of biased inaccuracies, suggesting segregated schools weren’t completely bad and Affirmative Action recipients are un-American. Newly appointed board chairwoman Donna Bahorich voted with seven other Republicans in opposition.

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.

The Texas Board of Education voted 8-7 to reject a measure that would have required university professors and experts to fact check the state’s public school textbooks.

Controversy over the materials flared up again last month after Pearland mother Roni Dean-Burren posted a screen shot on Facebook of a text message exchange with her ninth-grade son who sent her a photo of an infographic in his McGraw-Hill World Geography textbook that read: “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations”.

Instead, the board voted unanimously to mandate that review panels be made up of “at least a majority” of people with “sufficient content expertise and experience”, reports the AP.

As it mulls books proposed for approval, the board relies on citizen review panels – often teachers, parents, business leaders or other experts – whose members are nominated by board members.

As we’ve reported before, the board, which is charged with coming up with the curriculum requirements for Texas textbooks, has taken a, shall we say, interesting approach to deciding what should and shouldn’t be included in Texas curriculum standards in recent years.

The Texas State Board of Education now consists of 10 Republicans and five Democrats.

Academics have also criticized Texas textbooks for “overstating the influence of religion on early American democracy”, such as Moses’ importance to the founding fathers. “The textbook publishers were put in a hard position”. “They had to teach history to Texas’ children without challenging conservative political views that are at odds with history”. One history book called slaves “workers” from Africa, and former board chairman Don McLeroy was quoted as saying, “The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel”.