11. How Textbooks Are Selected

A. The State Board of Education ("SBOE") and the Texas Education Agency ("TEA")

The State Board of Education ("SBOE") is composed of 15 elected representatives. The current chairman is Dr. Jack Christie. The Texas Education Agency ("TEA") is a governmental agency whose commissioner is appointed by the Governor. The current TEA commissioner is Dr. Mike Moses.

B. Textbook Selection Committee

Each member of the SBOE is entitled to appoint a member to the TEA's Textbook Selection Committee ("Selection Committee"). Each SBOE member makes several nominations for the position allocated to that member. The TEA decides which of the nominees are to serve on the Selection Committee. The TEA assures that the make up of the Selection Committee includes adequate ethnic, geographic, and gender representation, a task requiring the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. The Selection Committee reviews books and makes recommendations to the SBOE, which has the final say.

The Texas Administrative Code ("TAC") until now required that textbooks to promote "citizenship, a traditional sense of family, patriotism, an understanding of the free enterprise system, and present positive aspects of the U.S. and its heritage." Texas is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks, and this buying power combined with the TAC requirement, enabled the SBOE to negotiate many changes in objectionable textbooks. Other states, e.g., Arizona, do not have the buying power to compel changes and are stuck with whatever the textbook publishers choose to furnish.

A majority faction of the SBOE now believe that the new education code, passed by the 1995 Legislature, removes the SBOE's power to negotiate these types of changes, and that requirements to promote citizenship, etc., must be eliminated from the TAC. Thus the SBOE cannot negotiate a change even if a book is biased, extremist, judgmental, and unbalanced so long as a majority of the SBOE is satisfied that the textbook is "factually correct," covers at least one-half of the required essential elements, and meets certain physical requirements. Any book meeting those three criteria must be approved by the SBOE and will receive full state funding. A local school board dissatisfied with the textbooks adopted by the SBOE may purchase other books which have not been reviewed or approved, but it must come up with a portion of the purchase price. This presents two problems: (1) the local school board does not have the time, resources, or experts available to the SBOE to review and analyze the books and teachers' aids; (2) the local school board does not have the buying power to negotiate changes in textbooks. (3) The local school board is stuck with whatever the SBOE approves, unless it is able to come up with part of the purchase price for a more acceptable book.

Five of the fifteen members of the SBOE: Donna Ballard, Houston, Robert Offutt, San Antonio, Richard Watson, Lubbock, Randy Stevenson, Tyler, and Geraldine Miller, Dallas, have concluded that the SBOE retained the power to negotiate textbook content changes and should do so. The SBOE has requested the attorney general for his opinion, however, the majority of the SBOE will probably continue to ignore textbook content for the present.

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