A final meeting of the Texas Textbook selection folks is scheduled for Wednesday on books to be used for social studies. So far, 206 people have signed up to speak (for three minutes each).
- "... concern that the social studies standards proposed...are not based on recommendations of respected academics in the field" (3297 comments).
- "... proposed social studies standards are not in the best interests of the students" (3426 comments).
Of a total of 14,039 comments registered so far, these two concerns, from concerned citizens in Guam and Massachusetts, comprise almost half. Overall, MOST of the comments came from out-of-state busybodies, poke-noses, nit-pickers, and athletes of the tongue.
Tabulation of exceptions:
------- The Texas textbook selection process is important to everyone because Texas is, by far, the largest single purchaser of textbooks in the nation (the state provides textbooks to all school districts in the state). That means the state has tremendous influence on textbooks used in your school.
You can imagine the Little Rabbit Independent School District of western Indiana shopping for 200 11th-grade social studies books. No publisher is going to print 200 books, but Little Rabbit can pull a couple of hundred out of the stack of 600,000 that have been printed for Texas and they won't be missed.
Fortunately, though, the kids at Little Rabbit will learn about the contributions of Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and John Bell Hood (Division Commander, Army of Northern Virginia).