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Re: Middle School Physical Science Texts: dishonesty



I have been reading, with interest, the exchange on the text book issue.
Although I am sure there are elements of truth in all that is being said, a
lot of it comes across as a blanket indictment. I am an author on the
middle school general science series, Voyages, from McGraw-Hill. I have
been very impressed by the publishers attempt to monitor errors and present
material as correctly as possible. I have also been impressed, given the
constraints of the market they are trying to reach, by the quality and
amount of lab work they present in the text as well as in the teacher's
edition. They attempt to give teachers many options which, for a beginning
teacher, can be a great resource.

Regarding state requirements, McGraw-Hill attempts to reach the requirements
of many states by creating state versions. This is not financially possible
for all states. On the other hand, the material, as a whole, can't be too
far off the mark in any state.
Tom McCarthy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Green" <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 11:10 PM
Subject: Re: Middle School Physical Science Texts: dishonesty

1. The one middle-school science teacher I've talked to
said, emphatically, "You can't teach a science course from a
textbook."
She was aware of newspaper publicity concerning the purported
errors.

There is always an exception to every rule. You have been very lucky
to find such an exceptional middle school science teacher on your first
attempt.
It certainly would be nice if all middle school science teachers were
as competent as the one that you met.

My concern as a parent is whether the _teacher_ knows the science well
enough to teach w/o a text.

I find now that _my_ local MS teaches w/o science texts -- not because the
texts are found to have errors but because none of the texts match the
state requirements.

Now I am really worried!


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen