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Many school textbooks woefully outdated - Deep cuts in funding shackle teachers
Houston Chronicle ^ | September 2, 2003 | APRIL CASTRO, AP

Posted on 09/02/2003 3:49:09 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

AUSTIN -- Texas history teachers this year won't have to use antiquated textbooks that name Dan Morales as attorney general. After all, the state's former top legal official is headed to federal prison after pleading guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion charges. Other textbooks won't be as current.

Despite pleas from the state Board of Education, the Legislature cut textbook funding by $182 million this year. As the school year begins, some books are 14 years old, and gaffes in accuracy are inevitable.

For example: The Food and Drug Administration now recommends two to three servings of dairy a day, but outdated health books still recommend four daily dairy servings.

Jim Hutchinson, a high school health teacher in Bastrop, said recent strides in research and health care have turned numerous truths into fallacies.

"In the AIDS and HIV chapter, treatments were so limited at the time the book was written there were just three possible treatments. Now there are probably hundreds," Hutchinson said. "Also, it's so limited with symptoms simply because of the time it was published."

Health books used in all grade levels were published in 1989 and were implemented in the 1990-91 school year.

Education officials weren't planning to renew those books until the 2005-06 school year anyway, largely because priorities were placed on other subjects after a 1995 curriculum overhaul, according to Robert Leos, director of textbook administration for the Texas Education Agency.

Most of the books scheduled to be adopted in November weren't funded. But money for those books likely won't come until after the next regular legislative session -- in 2005. Until then, teachers will have to rely on outdated books, most of them about 10 years old.

Of the books scheduled for adoption this year by the State Board of Education, biology will be the only textbook to be renewed. New biology books are scheduled to be adopted in November.

Books used to teach English to Spanish-speaking students were among those forced into extended lifespans.

Others include agricultural science and technology education, business education, home economics education, technical education/industrial technology education, marketing education, trade and industrial education, technology applications, career orientation and health science technology education.

New social studies textbooks, with the Morales reference, were replaced earlier this year -- helping to bring books up to date with newer curriculum mandates.

"The new books are aligned with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and assessment," said Rosemary Morrow, administrative superintendent for social studies for the Austin school district. "The outdated textbooks just meant we didn't have things aligned to our state standards."

The new books, Morrow said, have extra software and support tools that were not available before.

Hutchinson, who's also a high school football coach, said keeping books current could go a long way to improving students' lagging enthusiasm.

"It's just so outdated, but luckily we have the Internet so we can supplement a lot of the outdated stuff," he said. "It's just not an adequate learning tool right now."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: education; educationnews; textbooks
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To: sharkhawk
Texas History is taught in the 7th grade.
21 posted on 09/02/2003 5:13:17 AM PDT by mathluv
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Old text books can be a nightmare. I taught my kids from their "first, second, third, etc... grade reader" series which were from my grandmother. They were published in 1908. The problem was that the third grade reader contained vocabulary and sentence structure used in college courses. In other words it took a hundred years to dumb a college course down to the third grade level.

As to the number of dairy groups served a day, or the treatments for AIDS, just what the hell does that have to do with education?

If you use text books from the late 1800's and early 1900's, you'll get a college education by the eighth grade.

22 posted on 09/02/2003 5:19:29 AM PDT by blackdog ("I hope that it's only amnesia, my friends think I'm permanantly insane")
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To: Lil'freeper
I question just how outdated these books are (other than falling apart at the seams) and suspect it's more an exercise in updating 'spin' and dumbing down content. Literature and history texts don't need changing- unless there are too many white guys cited.

Not to mention the money funneled into publishing firms which, I'm sure you have noticed, are churning out the LIBERAL point of view every chance they get.

23 posted on 09/02/2003 5:20:02 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: dawn53
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state. It has little or no problem solving. As for the empahsis on estimating, I don't know what book she is using. That is not the emphasis of TAKS.
24 posted on 09/02/2003 5:20:03 AM PDT by mathluv
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To: mathluv
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state.

Again, no textbook meets standards, except the ones placed by college educated elites. The best textbooks in the world can not hold a candle to a teacher that can light-up a classroom.

I know, when I taught Digital Electronics, I told my students that if they open the book other than to answer the questions, they wouldn't learn a thing. I invented a method of converting decimal to binary in seconds, made karnaugh maps a breeze, and we built fighting robots at the end of the class. The students had the time of their lives.

When I taught computer repair, there wasn't one textbook on the market that was close in covering the skills that they would need. I told the students that the books they were force to buy were for reference only. Ditto for networking technology.

25 posted on 09/02/2003 5:39:21 AM PDT by BushCountry (To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
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To: mathluv
Saxon math has never met the standards set by the state. It has little or no problem solving

We did at least 25, usually 30 problems per day in each Saxon lesson.

Practice problems on material learned that day (about 5), then 20-30 more problems to solve that included new concepts plus mixed review of familiar concepts.

You sure you're talking about Saxon????

26 posted on 09/02/2003 5:52:32 AM PDT by dawn53
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To: blackdog
Old text books can be a nightmare. I taught my kids from their "first, second, third, etc... grade reader" series which were from my grandmother. They were published in 1908. The problem was that the third grade reader contained vocabulary and sentence structure used in college courses. In other words it took a hundred years to dumb a college course down to the third grade level.

But, dumbing down school and college serves one great purpose - to provide job security for the teachers' union membership and for the Vietman protesters/college professors. Very self-serving circle of educrats, but little benefit to those that they are entrusted to teach.

27 posted on 09/02/2003 5:59:55 AM PDT by meyer
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To: BushCountry
Someone asked about the math method, so I decided to post it. I don't know if invented is the correct word, but I never seen a teacher or textbook used my method. It is just a simple way to do the binary to decimal conversion in your head, works great for IP addresses. };O)

It is a lot easier to explain in front of a classroom then put in text message, but I will try.

Here is the binary string (a byte): 10101000

Start from the left and work your way right.

Mutliply the first number by 2.
Add the second digit to the total.
Mutliply the total by 2.
Add the third digit to the total.
Repeat until you reach the end.

You can do this in your head.
Example above 10101000 - 2,5,10,21,42,84,168 <-- Answer.
Another Example - 11001101 - 3,6,12,25,51,102,205 <---Answer.

Things to remember: If the binary number ends in a 1 the total will be odd. In fact, whenever the number is a one in the binary string the total will be odd. See the above examples. With practice you can convert long binary strings in seconds to decimal without a calculator, provided you can multiply by two.
28 posted on 09/02/2003 6:16:06 AM PDT by BushCountry (To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
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To: sharkhawk
Why would the current attorney general of Texas be in a HISTORY book?

Because TX (and CA) buy so many textbooks. And there, to a large extent, is a large part of the problem.

29 posted on 09/02/2003 6:18:57 AM PDT by mewzilla
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To: Thebaddog
Good idea. My children's grammar text is about 100 years old. The date on our communications book is from the 1960's. Science needs to be updated every 5 years, though. History books could be used for 20 years, if an update was thrown in every two years.
30 posted on 09/02/2003 6:36:37 AM PDT by Marie (Klingon at heart...)
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To: dawn53
You are so right; Saxon is the best. My daughter is 11 and entering a private school calssroom for the first time today. I've been homeschooling her with Saxon until now. So far, she has out scored EVERY child in the school in the math portion of the entrance exams, even children three years her senior.
31 posted on 09/02/2003 6:42:07 AM PDT by Marie (Klingon at heart...)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
They usually cut bus service first, just to sock it to the parents.

Public education is a racket.
32 posted on 09/02/2003 6:58:44 AM PDT by ladylib
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To: Cincinatus' Wife; *Education News
Bump & Ping
33 posted on 09/02/2003 7:02:59 AM PDT by EdReform (Support Free Republic - Become a Monthly Donor)
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To: BushCountry
Only 10 kinds of people, those who know binary and those who don't.
34 posted on 09/02/2003 7:11:03 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator
When I first seen that quote on one of my students t-shirts, it took me 1010b2 seconds to figure it out, but once I did, I said, "Wow, that's cool."
35 posted on 09/02/2003 7:20:41 AM PDT by BushCountry (To the last, I will grapple with Democrats. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at Liberals.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Other generic headlines:

Pope condemns violence

Bengals lose by three touchdowns

Pauly Shore's new movie is an insult to intelligence

Dennis Rodman arrested for bizarre behavior

Clinton claims problems are Bush's fault

Hundreds killed in disaster in India

Millions starving in Africa

Unemployment rate has economists concerned


36 posted on 09/02/2003 7:47:47 AM PDT by Richard Kimball
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Maybe they should have bought books instead of spending in other areas.

Agreed, there are too many people working in the school districts making six figures that are not really contributing directly or indirectly to education. It seems like way too many districts have way too much overhead when you reach the admin level.

You know what's really sad? Your liable to have kids who don't pay attention to the world around them read about President Reagan in the outdated books and think he's still the President, or think that the President Bush they are reading about is still the same President Bush today.

I remember doing some volunteer work with one of my daughter's teachers, and she was running the kids through a current events exercise, and the hot topic in the news was the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. She started off with a very simple question : Which nation did the Soviet Union just invade? (keep in mind these were high school kids 10th grade level). The first person to answer said Australia, the second one said "no it's Austria". The teacher just had this look of suprise on her face. I kept thinking "The Australians and Austrians are going to be very surprised to hear about this".

37 posted on 09/02/2003 9:07:28 AM PDT by af_vet_rr
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To: dawn53
Yes/1 To start with, 5 problems may not be enough to develop understanding of a new concept. The review is the strong point of Saxon. And there is an extreme shortage of problem solving. PS is not just a word problem, that they know they will use the concept being taught. PS should require thinking. That has always been Saxon's weak point. And he would not change to meet state requirements.
38 posted on 09/02/2003 2:23:01 PM PDT by mathluv
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To: mewzilla
Yes, TX is the leading purchaser of textbooks. The TX AG is in the book because TX history is taught at grade 7.
39 posted on 09/02/2003 2:25:16 PM PDT by mathluv
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To: At _War_With_Liberals
New books mean latest leftist agendas.
Yup. The textbook publishers get rich in collusion with the PC-police... all paid for by the taxpayer.
40 posted on 09/04/2003 4:25:11 AM PDT by samtheman
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