First, Don McLeroy's letter will set the scene. Next, Terri Leo's letter will give the details. Both letters expose the stealth tactics used by Rep. Kent Grusendorf to fool the House members and the citizens of Texas. These two SBOE members are rightfully concerned about the clandestine process employed by Rep. Grusendorf to substitute a highly controversial plan to subvert textbook adoptions.

Every Texas parent who has children in the public schools, every Texas educator who teaches in the public schools, and every Texas citizen who values the duties/responsibilities of an elected SBOE should be extremely worried over an attempt by Rep. Grusendorf to surrender our school children to the perils of cyberspace!

Donna Garner
wgarner1@hot.rr.com
24 April 2005
Stealth Attack on Textbook Adoption
by Don McLeroy, SBOE Member

On April 5, 2005, in a span of just four minutes and ten seconds, Texas's long held centralized statewide textbook adoption process was, if the House has its way, abruptly abandoned. In a quiet and stealth move in the House Public Education Committee, previously unannounced major changes incorporated into the Committee Substitute were approved without any public notice, without any public testimony, and with no committee debate. No one present in the packed Committee room and overflow room had any idea what had just happened.

House Bill 4, as introduced on March 5, 2005, had two primary emphases: first, the replacement of the term "textbooks" with the term "instructional materials", and second, major changes in the Education code to allow greater and more effective use of technology. It was on March 15, 2005, under this technology umbrella, that the public hearing on House Bill 4 was held; the discussion and testimony focused on technology.

Also, in contrast to most bills being considered in Austin, the original "Introduced" version of House Bill 4 was a subject which garnered a lot of public scrutiny; many newspaper articles and editorials were published concerning the new changes in technology. In House Bill 4, as introduced, the current adoption processes were spelled out and retained; all instructional materials were to be subject to the standard adoption process by the elected State Board of Education. Under the Committee Substitute, House Bill 4 gained a third primary emphasis: major changes in the way we adopt instructional materials. The current adoption procedures were deleted and in its place, school districts were given the opportunity to select any materials that they wished-the only requirement being that they annually self-certify that the adopted materials covered the state curriculum.

Statewide textbook adoptions have recently been criticized for producing bland and unsatisfactory textbooks; however, they have also been praised for making many improvements in the textbooks-for example-actual phonics are in the phonics books. The question of a centralized statewide textbook adoption is a complex issue. What is amazing about the House Public Education Committee's action was that this complex issue was swept under the rug and out of the sight of public scrutiny and passed without any public debate. Changing a long held Texas Education public policy, like the textbook adoption process, requires a deliberative process; it needs plenty of sunshine, alot of discussion and alot of debate.

In that brief discussion before the Public Education Committee, Chairman Grusendorf carefully failed to mention the proposed sweeping changes in the adoption of instructional materials. However, he did demonstrate his intimate knowledge of the Committee Substitute by carefully pointing out a typographical error.

It is therefore evident that the Chairman and others in the House are convinced that the current adoption process should be abolished. If this is the case, why wasn't it placed forthrightly and openly in his original Introduced version? What are the, so far unstated, reasons for abolishing the current statewide adoption process? Our commitment to open government demands an answer.

This process that was followed in the House is a "textbook example", oops, an "instructional materials example" of how the legislative system can be abused. What is the authoritarian way to pass a bill? The steps are simple: first, you file a "red herring" Introductory version-to keep the public in the dark about your real motive; second, you seek public input by holding a public hearing, on the "red herring"-this keeps the public distracted, finally, at the last minute, as you vote the bill out of committee, you substitute a radically different bill-a bill that can not receive any public scrutiny and hopefully not receive even any scrutiny from your fellow trusting legislators.

The good news is we have a bicameral legislature. Thankfully, one body of the legislature cannot unilaterally force their will on the citizens of Texas. House Bill 4, as substituted, must still win the blessing of the Texas Senate. While all opportunity has been lost to debate the issue in the House of Representatives, the opportunity still exists for deliberation in the Senate.

Our children's instructional materials deserve better legislative treatment than this. Let the debate over the state adoption process begin in the Senate. Let the Senate seek out the arguments for and against this new adoption process. Good laws deserve a good debate; all laws deserve the sunshine of public scrutiny.

Don McLeroy
Member, State Board of Education District 9
3707 Tanglewood
Bryan, Texas 77802
979-255-2538

"Surrendering Our School Children to Cyberspace"
by Terri Leo, SBOE Member

During the past six decades, the State Board of Education (SBOE) has been a responsible
steward of the state's textbooks and instructional materials. Now, if passed by the 79th Legislature, HB 4 would dramatically and detrimentally change the SBOE's authority over the textbook/instructional materials review process. The public would basically be surrendering their children to writers and publishers who dwell in cyberspace!

With the high expectations that the Legislature and the SBOE have set for student academic performance in Texas, the SBOE should provide more quality control over instructional materials, not less. HB 4 would result in no quality control by the SBOE and places authority over instructional materials in the hands of unelected and unknown entities who may live in other parts of the country or even in other parts of the world. To whom would the citizens of Texas take their concerns if they did not like some particular agenda which surfaced in their children's textbooks?

HB 4 states that publishers could submit instructional materials "at any time." Teachers, however, only have time for participation in the state instructional materials review process in the summer! If HB 4 is allowed to stand, publishers could time their submissions in such a way that teacher input into the textbook evaluation process would be almost completely excluded.

In addition, the state textbook review process under HB 4 would be less efficient because costs for extra staff to conduct frequent reviews of instructional materials would increase at the same time that careful scrutiny of all materials would decline.

HB 4 would cause the state textbook approvals to be out of sync with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) revisions. At present the TEKS revision process drives the state instructional materials adoption cycle, a sound approach to ensure clear and consistent alignment of instructional objectives and curriculum. Disrupting that synergy between TEKS expectations and content standards would negatively affect TAKS scores and school ratings.

Currently, publishers must furnish actual samples of approved instructional materials which are up for local adoption. With the passage of HB 4, publishers would have to provide only a description of their materials -- in other words, give their sales pitch! School districts would not really get to see the materials themselves until after the materials were adopted.

Most errors in textbooks are found by citizens who have the opportunity to review the actual textbooks. Thousands of errors have been found and corrected during the review process. According to HB 4, publishers are not required to submit instructional materials at all. Why would a publisher want to face public scrutiny if they are not required to do so?

The bill states that the "Agency" should "encourage alignment with the curriculum." If materials are to be paid for with state dollars, they should be required to meet all the TEKS or over 50% as under current law. Any instructional materials which meet less than 50% of the TEKS should be forced to rework their submissions and then should be listed as conforming or nonconforming just as is presently required of the basal products. "Encourage" is a long way from "requiring."

HB 4 provides only for Texas Education Agency input into the review process with no statutory SBOE role in the fact-finding phase before the final vote. Without these revisions, there is no provision for democratic oversight by the elected SBOE of the instructional materials evaluation process.

Most importantly, if HB4 were to become law, Texas would basically lose the state adoption and review process. Currently the publishers come to Texas to write the books for the rest of the nation. If HB 4 becomes law, New York and California will then be deciding what Texas school children will be reading.

Lastly, Texans do not want outside agents who may have distinct social agendas coming into our schools and stealing the minds of our Texas children. HB 4 sets up the possibility that this could happen because it permits limited or no oversight of school instructional materials. As elected officials, we have a responsibility to protect innocent school children from those who would like free reign over what is taught to our Texas children. HB 4 must be held up to careful and diligent public scrutiny.

Terri Leo

State Board of Education District #6
23516 Twin Oaks Drive
Spring, Texas 77389
281-257-0836

Textbook Administration

Texas Textbook Censorship

SBOE Approves an Evolution in Texas Textbooks
BY MICHAEL KING, austinchronicle.com

LINK

In what turned out to be something of an anticlimax, the State Board of Education voted last week to approve adoption of all 11 of the high school biology textbooks recommended by Texas Education Agency staff, following professional and public review. After months of high-profile debates over the treatment of evolution in the various texts, both supporters and opponents had been expecting at least some debating fireworks. And because several newly elected members had joined the board this year, few observers cared to predict the final outcome.

But in last Thursday's preliminary vote (confirmed Friday), the fireworks were all procedural. A motion by Beaumont's David Bradley to discuss the books individually was defeated 11-4, and subsequent motions by Mavis Knight of Dallas to close debate and then to approve the books as a group passed by the same margin. Bradley was joined only by Terri Leo (Spring), Don McElroy (Bryan), and Gail Lowe (Lampasas). Board Chair Geraldine "Tincy" Miller insisted, "We have had many opportunities in the last year to look at these books and study them. ... Now is the time to vote."

"This is great news for the children of Texas," said Samantha Smoot of the Texas Freedom Network, a statewide group active on education and religious freedom issues. "The board sent a clear message that educational and scientific standards come first for Texas schools, not the ideological preferences of a few people."

Bradley told reporters he had hoped the board would reject, or at least qualify its approval for, nine of the 11 texts. He argued that those books are "nonconforming" to state standards because they are insufficiently critical of historical errors in the development of evolutionary theory. (Any books ruled "nonconforming" would be at a strong disadvantage at the school district level, because the state will not reimburse districts for the purchase of nonconforming texts.) Prior to the vote, McElroy had recorded his objections to evolutionary theory in an e-mail to supporters, saying, "Given all the time in the world, I don't think I could make a spider out of a rock. However, most of the books we are considering adopting, claim that Nothing made a spider out of a rock."

Most of the attacks on the textbooks made similarly creationist arguments against evolution, although the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank leading a national campaign in support of "intelligent design," insists that opponents want only to eliminate "errors" in the Texas textbooks. Following the SBOE action, the institute declared a "last-minute victory [for] textbook reformers" because prior to Friday's confirming vote, TEA head Robert Scott told board members that any additional errors would be corrected by publishers before the texts are distributed to school districts. But the board's strong vote marks a public defeat for those demanding that the board reject any textbooks critics deemed insufficiently critical of evolution or failing to present the "other side."

Dozens of Texas scientists, teachers, parents, and clergy had testified in public hearings in support of the textbooks and of evolutionary theory as the organizing paradigm of the biological sciences. Dr. Alfred Gilman, a professor at UT's Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a Nobel Laureate in medicine, called the SBOE decision a very important vote in defense of scientific education. "The people from the Discovery Institute have tried to invent a 'theory in crisis' concerning evolution," said Gilman. "This is propagandistic nonsense. Evolution is not a theory in crisis -- it's the foundation, the cornerstone, of biology." He said opponents' attempts to magnify what they call "errors" in the experimental history amount to "making mountains out of molehills."

"They no longer make explicitly religious arguments against evolution," Gilman continued, "because they know they've been beaten on that one. But we should not dignify their pseudoscience by agreeing that these so-called weaknesses are scientific 'errors.' No textbook is perfect, but they're just looking for excuses to throw the baby out with the bathwater."