The Texas Education Agency should be required to pilot electronic updates of public school textbooks using the Internet.
BackgroundTexas consistently places near the top in state expenditures on public school textbooks. In 1995, the state ranked first, spending $231.1 million on new textbooks.[1] Texas public school students are using $1 billion worth of textbooks and related learning systems acquired over the years.[2] Textbook publishers spend roughly $55 million to $75 million each year to develop, publish, and market textbooks and related materials solely to answer the state's demand.[3]
Texas' dominant position in the national textbook industry gives it--potentially, at least--a great deal of leverage to improve the quality and reduce the cost of textbooks. Texas could apply this leverage to develop new ways of delivering instructional services and materials to teachers and students via advanced technology.
Senate Bill 1: technology and education
The Legislature's 1995 revision of the education code, Senate Bill 1, defines "electronic textbooks" to include any "mean(s) of conveying information to the student or otherwise contributing to the learning process through electronic means." In addition, the code defines publishers to include "an on-line service or a developer or distributor of an electronic textbook."[4]
Under Senate Bill 1, each school district annually receives a state technology allotment of $30 per student for electronic textbooks, other technology that contributes to student learning, and related teacher training.[5] The statute also directs the State Board of Education (SBOE) to develop a long-range plan for technology in the public schools, so that each Texas high school graduate meets board-developed standards for computer skills by the year 2000.[6]
As of September 1996, 54 school districts had direct connections to the Internet provided through the Texas Education Network (TENET), a computer resource available to educators through the Texas Education Agency (TEA).[7] In the same month, districts were slated to bid for grants of up to $300,000 each for computer technology funds recently made available through the state Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF).[8] TIF was created by the 1995 Legislature to deliver $1.5 billion over 10 years to public schools and nonprofit hospitals to acquire computers and establish the technological infrastructure necessary for education, long distance learning, telemedicine and rural economic development.[9] TEA expects all Texas public schools to be connected to the Internet by the end of 2001.[10]
To date, however, TEA has made no provisions to provide electronic versions of updated textbook materials via the Internet, partly because many schools are only beginning to build their computer capabilities.
Textbook selection
Texas, like 21 other states, chooses textbooks through a state screening process that approves books for purchase with state funds.[11] The SBOE, in accordance with Senate Bill 1, has established a revised adoption schedule for new textbooks and new editions of existing texts.
Textbooks for core subjects such as math, social studies, and history will be reconsidered every six or seven years, while books for "enrichment" subjects such as theater, choir, and journalism will be revisited every eight to 10 years. Books for rapidly evolving topics related to technology and computer literacy will be reconsidered every four to five years.[12]
Provisions for textbook updates
Senate Bill 1 does not address the potential for updating textbooks in between adoption years. Yet SBOE rules permit publishers to request the substitution of a new version of a textbook for the version approved by SBOE.[13] Thirteen such requests have been approved by the state since 1993, but in most instances these requests did not arise from a desire to update factual material but because a publisher did not have enough stored copies of the older, adopted version to satisfy school district requests. In those cases, SBOE rules required the publishers to pay for publication and delivery of the new versions.[14]
In addition, standard contracts between TEA and textbook publishers allow SBOE to request revisions of textbooks between adoptions if they are necessary to keep materials up to date and "abreast of the times."[15] According to the contract, SBOE can seek no more than one revision every two years and must give the publisher a one-year advance notice. Although the contract language does not specify who is responsible for paying for such a revision, TEA's practice is to pay publishers for such updates.[16] SBOE applied this provision for the first time in April 1996, paying a publisher $2.1 million to update 2,131 computer-literacy software packages previously adopted for students in grades 7 and 8.[17] The cost of this revision was negotiated between the agency and publisher.[18]
Time lags and inaccuracies
Texas has made few efforts to address the information gaps caused by time lags between state textbook adoptions. Educators may simply be accustomed to facts changing considerably during the six to 10 years between state textbook adoptions, and feel that little can be done about it.
For example, social studies textbooks used by Texas students in grades 5 and 6 during the 1996-97 school year were adopted by the SBOE in 1987 and published in 1988. One of these books inaccurately describes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as the sole female member of the Supreme Court.[19] A chapter in another text begins: "Today a long strip of wasteland, wooden barricades, and barbed wire divides Germany into two parts."[20] And a sixth-grade textbook describes the merger of East and West Germany as "a dream of many Germans [that] is unlikely to come true for a long time, if ever."[21]
Such statements are understandable, if unfortunate, given the time lags between publication and distribution and between SBOE adoptions. Out-of-date texts force teachers to correct errors from their personal knowledge of current events or from paper updates published and distributed annually by publishers. As a former Texas school administrator and textbook editor said, "What you've got to do is pray you have a very informed, educated teacher."[22]
Yet technology is providing new opportunities to keep texts accurate and up to date, through vehicles such as the Internet. At least one publisher has told TEA that it wants to provide quarterly updates to its social studies texts via the Internet. This arrangement would allow teachers to visit the company's web page and electronically gather supplementary material reflecting current events and new discoveries. In addition, teachers would be able to contact additional web sites related to textbook topics through hypertext links electronically presenting them with new material. These electronic updates, described by a company official as "a perfect application of this technology," are intended to gradually replace annual printed updates.[23]
Another publisher is testing web pages tailored to supplement particular university biology courses; the customized sites are routinely updated with scientific developments and include dozens of hypertext links to related information. "This was a way to keep people up to date with information that needs to be updated on a monthly basis," an organizer said.[24]
Other states
Other states appear ready to watch how Texas proceeds. TPR contacted officials in seven states that use a state textbook adoption process, including California, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia. Only South Carolina had plans to post curriculum-related materials on a web page; each of South Carolina's 1,099 schools is to be wired for computers by August 1997.[25] In most other states, officials said neither schools nor teachers were prepared to use the Internet to update textbooks. "We just haven't gotten there yet," a California education consultant said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if we get there." [26]
Technical, classroom hurdles
As SBOE works out a long-range technology plan, and as TIF and TENET evolve, at least two major questions are likely to be resolved: When and how will all public schools be electronically networked? How will teachers and students be trained in the new technologies and applications to make them useful in the classroom?
In addition, the potential for using the Internet to update textbooks generates other questions such as: who will pay for updates--publishers, schools, or the state? Can publisher savings from reduced printing and shipping costs be plowed back into improved textbook resources via the Internet? Will publisher savings be counterbalanced by additional research costs associated with frequent updates? Will school districts end up spending additional funds on paper and printing costs previously assumed by publishers? Will questions of copyright law prevent publishers from delivering photographs and other non-proprietary materials over the Internet? Will such questions generate additional costs? Could publishers save millions of dollars if state law required them to showcase samples and support materials, called ancillaries, to school districts solely via the Internet? Will teachers and students still be adequately served in their selection of textbooks?
While these questions must be addressed and resolved, electronic textbook updates and supplemental material would provide Texas public school students with up-to-date information. Distribution through the Internet would ensure availability to teachers and principals on all school campuses.
Recommendation
State law should be amended to direct the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to develop a pilot project to use electronic computer networks, including the Internet, to deliver textbook updates to public school districts.
Publishers, educators, and TEA officials agree that this concept has great potential, but many questions need to be answered. TEA should select a representative sample of districts to participate in a geographically and demographically balanced Internet Study Project on the possible uses of the Internet in providing updated classroom materials to teachers and students. The state education commissioner should begin by appointing a task force including agency personnel, publishers, educators, students, legislators, and technology experts to outline key issues to be addressed by this study.
The Internet Study Project should be designed to yield results with statewide applications, not necessarily limited to textbook updates, for consideration by the 1999 Texas Legislature. The pilot should be coordinated with the State Board of Education's long-range technology plan and its goals for student computer literacy.
Fiscal Impact
This recommendation would have no fiscal impact on the state. The pilot project should be conducted using TEA's existing resources.
Footnotes[1] Association of American Publishers, AAP Industry Statistics Guide (New York, 1996), p. F-6.
[2] Texas Education Agency, "Total Number and Value of State Owned Textbooks," Austin, Texas, August 27, 1996. (Computer printout.)
[3] Interview with Bill Talkington, president and chief executive officer, Holt Rinehart and Winston, Austin, Texas, August 28, 1996.
[4] Texas S.B. 1, 74th Leg., Reg. Sess., SS31.002(2).
[5] Texas S.B. 1, SS31.021(b)(2).
[6] Texas S.B. 1, SS32.001.
[7] Interview with Richard LaGow, Texas Education Agency, Austin, Texas, September 10, 1996.
[8] Interview with Arnold Viramontes, executive director, Texas Infrastructure Fund Board, Austin, Texas, September 11, 1996.
[9] Texas H.B. 2128, 74th Leg., Reg. Sess.
[10] Interview with Anita Givens, senior director, Technology Services, Texas Education Agency, Austin, Texas, September 10, 1996.
[11] Texas Education Agency, "Report of Textbook Adoptions in Other States," Austin, Texas, January 1995.
[12] Texas Education Agency, "Proposed Textbook Purchases: Proclamations 1996 through 2001," Austin, Texas, 1996.
[13] Texas State Board of Education Rules SS66.75, August 1996.
[14] Texas Education Agency, Substitutions, 1993 To Date (Austin, Texas, 1996); and interview with Robert Leos, senior director, Division of Textbook Administration, Texas Education Agency, Austin, Texas, August 13, 1996.
[15] Texas Education Agency, "Official Texas Textbook Contract Form," Austin, Texas, 1996, p. 3.
[16] Interview with Robert Leos, senior director, Division of Textbook Administration, Texas Education Agency, Austin, Texas, August 27, 1996.
[17] State Board of Education, Committee on School Finance, "Agenda," Austin, Texas, April 12, 1996, pp. IV.77-IV.78.
[18] Interview with Robert Cox, vice president, Texas Region, Glencoe Publishing Company, Arlington, Texas, August 27, 1996.
[19] Dr. Stephanie Abraham Hirsch, ed., The United States, Its History and Neighbors (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), p. 511.
[20] Barbara Radner Reque, The World Past to Present (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1988), p. 356.
[21] Dr. Stephanie Abraham Hirsch, ed., The World Past and Present (Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), p. 228.
[22] Interview with Dr. Stephanie Abraham Hirsch, Richardson, Texas, August 27, 1996.
[23] Interview with John Johnson, director of online services, MacMillan/McGraw-Hill School Division, Guilford, Connecticut, August 28, 1996.
[24] Interview with Jonathan Stowe, webmaster, Times Mirror Higher Education Group, Guilford, Connecticut, August 28, 1996.
[25] Interview with Edna Crews, director, South Carolina Office of Education Design, Columbia, South Carolina, August 27, 1996.
[26] Interview with Caroline Roberts, consultant, Sacramento, California, August 24, 1996.
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