http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/education/21textbooks.html
This is an article about the Texas Board of Education's proposed changes to textbooks for history, social studies, and economics. It mentions the rise in digital texts allowing different states to tailor their books, and thus the reverberations of this conservative movement being mitigated in a way the science book changes from 2009 were not. However, for some states (and I am guessing it will be many) it continues to be a problem (Texas deciding what the others will be able to teach their students by its mere size). It's worrisome that there are publishers willing to allow consumers to determine what material will be included in the historical record of fact, or the record of scientific fact. It's outrageous for popular opinion, size, and brute force to be used in altering what students learn in school. How does the librarian in a Texas school provide a well-rounded collection to the students in an environment of active hostility to openness? The constraints on their collection development must be fierce and closely monitored, because there is rarely a more radical person than a librarian when it comes to reading material. I'm curious what types of rules they are operating under from the board of education and their individual school boards. And, I wonder how some of them are finding ways to subvert those restrictions.
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