Texas Republican primary ballot proposal #4

[Towlie]

Well, since the text books used in Texas end up in the majority of the other States, that must mean your Boards of Education totally agree with Texas, then, huh?

Not totally, no.

If your point is that other states are guilty in this regard as well, you're absolutely right. Texas isn't the only backward, right-wing, science-denying state in the union, just the worst.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Link



Thoughts?

This would violate the distinction between public speach and goverment speach.

It is a waste of the taxpayers money for the effort to defend this is a court of law as this WILL get challenged.

 

[drkitten]

Not totally, no.

If your point is that other states are guilty in this regard as well, you're absolutely right. Texas isn't the only backward, right-wing, science-denying state in the union, just the worst.

I'm not even sure it's the worst, just the most influential.

The first problem is that most states don't have a state Board of Education that is responsible for textbook selection; instead, they leave that up to individual districts. (For example, the Dover Pandas Trial was about the choice by the Dover, PA, school board to mandate the teaching of creationism, but that doesn't affect teaching or textbooks in Bethlehem, PA). Texas is one of a relatively substantial minority that makes decisions state-wide.

The second problem is that Texas is a huge state in terms of population, and therefore in terms of textbook purchases. While California is an even larger state, California doesn't mandate state-wide adoption of textbooks, so San Francisco can pick different texts (with different slants) than Eureka.

This makes Texas the 800-lb gorilla in the room; if you make a textbook that won't pass muster with the Texas SBOE, then you've just decided to write off the single largest customer in the industry.

There's really little that the city of San Francisco (or of Bethlehem, PA) can do to offset Texas' influence in the marketplace.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

At what point are the authors of those textbooks going to put their foot(s) down and insist that the publishers not floow the Texas model?

 

[GreyICE]

Well, since the text books used in Texas end up in the majority of the other States, that must mean your Boards of Education totally agree with Texas, then, huh?
What a bunch of sheeple...

The best way to show American ignorance as non-unique is to show idiotic ignorance of America.

This qualifies. Good job. Can't decide if it's a subtle parody, or actual international idiotic generalization, but either way, I think you failed at accomplishing what you wished to.

 

[drkitten]

At what point are the authors of those textbooks going to put their foot(s) down and insist that the publishers not floow the Texas model?

Approximately the other side of never.

 

[ponderingturtle]

This would violate the distinction between public speach and goverment speach.

It is a waste of the taxpayers money for the effort to defend this is a court of law as this WILL get challenged.

This isn't about getting a law passed, it is about getting a platform to make people vote for them. Its constitutionality is only relevant if they try to pass laws about it, but as a political platform, you can keep running on this for decades, while if ruled unconstitutional you really couldn't.

 

[ponderingturtle]

At what point are the authors of those textbooks going to put their foot(s) down and insist that the publishers not floow the Texas model?

So some author does, with high school and lower texts, do the authors have the power to make the publishers do anything, or have they just put themselves out of work?

 

[drkitten]

So some author does, with high school and lower texts, do the authors have the power to make the publishers do anything, or have they just put themselves out of work?

They've just put themselves out of work, of course.

Publishers generally won't even look at unsolicited high school and lower textbooks. The complexity of navigating the various state curricula is sufficiently high that the publishers generally have the books written to order by authors. Most of the time they're written by committee, because the publisher can't find a single author who has the necessary skill, and then they're painstakingly re-written by professional copy editors to give them relatively uniform style and to make sure that all the i's are dotted and t's crossed.

Essentially, the copy editor has an office filled with every relevant state curriculum standards and is going through line by line to make sure that the requirements are satisfied.

If an author refused to play this game,.... well, that would be like Boeing telling the Air Force "we know what you wanted to build and what you contracted for was a fighter jet, but we would rather build a helicopter." Or a carpenter telling the architect "Well, I know you wanted a three-story building, but I won't work on anything higher than two stories, so you're just going to have to scrap the blueprints and tell the client to scale down his project."

I.e. it won't wash.

I looked into the idea of writing an elementary school science textbook a few years back, thinking (in my naivete) that it was just like writing a college text and I simply had to have a unique slant in the proposal. I was,.... wrong. Proposing to write a textbook for the elementary school market would have been like my proposing to build a fighter jet for the Air Force.

 

[ponderingturtle]

They've just put themselves out of work, of course.

Publishers generally won't even look at unsolicited high school and lower textbooks. The complexity of navigating the various state curricula is sufficiently high that the publishers generally have the books written to order by authors. Most of the time they're written by committee,

That is pretty much what I thought, I couldn't remember ever thinking of a book as being by Such and Such, until I got into college. Then I saw Halliday, Resnick and Walker and I thought about text books in terms of the authors.

 

[drkitten]

That is pretty much what I thought, I couldn't remember ever thinking of a book as being by Such and Such, until I got into college. Then I saw Halliday, Resnick and Walker and I thought about text books in terms of the authors.

Actually, even Halliday, Resnick, and company provide a pretty good example of the perils of textbook publishing. That's into what, it's 6th edition? The entry level history text by Palmer and Colton (and now Kramer) is into its 10th.

I'm not entirely convinced that Halliday has ever met Walker. The "giants in the field," at this point, have achieved the status of textbook-by-committee simply because the publishers (which hold the rights) have established this particular approach as being extremely saleable.

And much of the time, they'd rather have the books edited to bring them up to date (but keep most of the same material and approach) than try something new and have to re-establish the market. Palmer has been dead for nearly ten years, and Colton has been retired for more than twenty -- but Kramer still revises the history book for them, and when Kramer is no longer available, we'll probably see the 12th edition come out as Palmer, Colton, Kramer, and Dinglefritz (or whoever).

I doubt I could make headway into the freshman physics textbook market, either. I can't go up against the ghost of David Halliday.

ETA: minor correction. Apparently the 8th edition of Halliday, et al, came out in 2008.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Actually, even Halliday, Resnick, and company provide a pretty good example of the perils of textbook publishing. That's into what, it's 6th edition? The entry level history text by Palmer and Colton (and now Kramer) is into its 10th.

I'm not entirely convinced that Halliday has ever met Walker. The "giants in the field," at this point, have achieved the status of textbook-by-committee simply because the publishers (which hold the rights) have established this particular approach as being extremely saleable.

And much of the time, they'd rather have the books edited to bring them up to date (but keep most of the same material and approach) than try something new and have to re-establish the market. Palmer has been dead for nearly ten years, and Colton has been retired for more than twenty -- but Kramer still revises the history book for them, and when Kramer is no longer available, we'll probably see the 12th edition come out as Palmer, Colton, Kramer, and Dinglefritz (or whoever).

I doubt I could make headway into the freshman physics textbook market, either. I can't go up against the ghost of David Halliday.

Hmm, I wonder if the textbooks on auto mechanics my grandfather wrote still have his name on them in the current editions.(He hasn't worked on them for 25 years or more). I will have to ask him.

 

[rwguinn]

Not totally, no.

If your point is that other states are guilty in this regard as well, you're absolutely right. Texas isn't the only backward, right-wing, science-denying state in the union, just the worst.

Since the Texas BOe requires these books, all Texans are guilty
My state BOe requires these books, but we are not guilty

 

[Towlie]

I was just wondering about this idea that other states have to accept textbooks written the way Texas wants them. Why can't publishers print different versions for other states? What's the big deal?

 

[fuelair]

At what point are the authors of those textbooks going to put their foot(s) down and insist that the publishers not floow the Texas model?

Do you mean the grad assistants who do 90% plus of the work and simply follow what the professor whose name goes on the cover tells them to do so he/she can make some semi-decent outside money?

 

[drkitten]

I was just wondering about this idea that other states have to accept textbooks written the way Texas wants them. Why can't publishers print different versions for other states? What's the big deal?

Printing textbooks is expensive. More accurately, editing textbooks is expensive. A "different version" costs almost as much as an entirely new textbook, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Especially when the "different states" don't select textbooks on a statewide basis, but on a city or district wide one.... the city of Baltimore can't generate enough sales to justify creating another Baltimore-centric edition. The state of Texas can generate enough sales, and if New York or California picked books on a state-wide basis, it might be worth creating a Texas edition and a California edition.

But individual cities, even in California, and less populous states in their entirety, simply don't draw enough water.....

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Quite obviously he is, or he wouldn't be asking for evidence that the state is adjusting the teaching standards to reflect the right-wing pro-Christian bias under discussion, or asking for evidence that teachers need to teach in accordance with the standards.

B.S. and selective myopia on your part. Here's specifically what he's been asking since Towlie offered his brilliant insight about every subject.

No. And that is evidence that, in Texas, every subject is taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias"?

And thus far all he's been told is that he's ignorant of the fact that every subject is taught in such a manner because of the current boards actions regarding social studies. How does repeating something he clearly already is aware of providing evidence that in Texas, every subject is taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias?

Just because someone lives in Texas doesn't make them not an ill-informed idiot. I suspect quite the opposite.

You can suspect all you want. That won't make it true though. Man, critical thinking can get thrown right out the window here when it comes to religion or politics faster than a water balloon during a fraternity hell week.

No, I'm not using the number itself as evidence, I'm pointing you to that number of individual pieces of evidence. It's precisely what you've repeatedly demanded, but now that it's been provided to you I get the impression that you intend to ignore it. Am I right?

How does Googling "texas textbooks" support your assertion that in Texas, every subject is taught "with a strong right-wing, revisionist, pro-Christianity, anti-science bias? I mean I can get almost 2 mil. hits for Morse code but that doesn't prove anything about the telecom industry.

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

So much for limited government.

No, no, no... conservatives are all for limited government... as long as it's just in regards to their wallets and gun cabinets.

 

[Achán hiNidráne]

So much for limited government.

No, no, no... conservatives are all for limited government... as long as it's just in regards to their wallets and gun cabinets.