Texas board changes textbook review rules after years of cultural battles

Associated Press in Austin
theguardian.com, Friday 31 January 2014 20.12 GMT

The Texas board of education imposed tighter rules Friday on the citizen review panels that scrutinize proposed textbooks, potentially softening the ideological battles over science and religion that have long plagued the debate about what students learn in school.

Tension over the issue has been building for years in the country's second most populous state, where the textbook market is so large that changes can affect the industry nationwide. Critics complain that a few activists with religious or ideological objections have too much power to shape what the state's more than 5 million public school students learn.

The 15-member education board has the final say on textbook content, but the boards influence its decisions. Among the changes approved Friday is a mandate that teachers or professors be given priority for serving on the textbook panels for subjects in their areas of expertise.

Election defeats have weakened the board's bloc of social conservatives, who made headlines in recent years when pushing for de-emphasizing evolution in science books and requiring students to evaluate whether the United Nations undermined US sovereignty.

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