[highlander_UW]

Texas is uniquely important in textbook content because the state of Texas is the largest single purchaser of textbooks. Publishers can hardly afford to print different versions for other states, so Texas curriculum standards have nationwide influence.

Here is my long term prediction. Eventually textbooks will be electronic and students will carry something like a tablet pc that is loaded with all their texts for the school period. Because there won't be printing and distribution costs it will be easier for publishers to customize books to fit the requests from each state.

The net result of that (over a period of decades) will be that the quality and accuracy of education that students receive will be controlled by which state they reside in. Students will have huge difficulties when families move out of state because of the divergence of educational quality. And ultimately, some of the continuity of American society will erode because we will have fewer educational experiences in common.

There can be advantages to this as well...it could put the control and power of curricula closer to the hands of the parents.

[Mach9]

You can’t be far off on this prediction. Education by Wikepedia.

[elcid1970]

“....textbooks will be electronic...”

I’m still new to the Kindle, but the use of this and other IM devices should make it much easier and faster to roll back the revisionism, and reinstitute truth in student textbooks.

Anyway, Go Texas!! Hook ‘em, ‘Horns!! Yaaaaaay!!!

:^)