I have exerted a great deal of effort ( http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/ ) to bring up these points to the public as well as the state board of education in CA, including
1. the development of a science education petition
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/petition.html
that had 34 pages of signatures
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/supporters.html
2. writing letters to the state secretary of education
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/Metz.html
3. testifying to the state board of education
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/LDW2-00statement.html
4. writing an editorial that was submitted to newspapers throughout the state, but only published in San Diego area newspapers
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org/standards/opinion.html
Excerpt: "The outcome of California's irrational process is that materials that have been carefully developed, thoroughly tested, and revised have not been, and, in fact, cannot be approved for adoption by the state. Only those materials that have been rapidly developed and have not been tested can be adopted."
I also performed the technical review for an NSF funded middle school (FOSS) electronics mini-course developed by the Lawrence Hall of Science.
Some points:
1. There are countless errors in state adopted textbooks. Textbooks are typically written by teams of writers who will use previous editions and products. The writers are often not experts in the areas they are writing about.
2. Even when the state mandates that adopted textbooks be accurate, there is no means to ensure this actually happens. In CA, the scientists on the textbook review panels could not review every word written in the textbooks, there was insufficient time and manpower - as they even admitted. So mandate or no, errors are not caught.
3. Too many scientists with PhDs after their name think that they have a good grasp on all areas of science and are unwilling to admit that they don't have the expertise to review sections of textbooks - even at the middle school level. This provides a false sense that the material has really been thoroughly reviewed - when in fact it has not.
4. Reviewers may review only parts of the textbooks - they may skip parts that they feel do not need review. I wonder how many reviewers really read every work in the text they were reviewing and admitted that they were not competent to review some parts. I know I did when I reviewed the FOSS electronics course, but I doubt many others would.
>This does not include any of the glossy books with lots of color photos.
>Sadly it also does not include "Active Physics" which has been heavily
>pushed by the AAPT, or Hewitt's book. This is not to say that they are
>ineffective, just that they are untested, and one wonders if some material
>has been tested, and the results were thrown out because they were bad.
>If this same situation existed in medicine, then doctors would be allowed to
>administer any drug they please, without regard to the consequences. Do we
>need an FDE (Federal Department of Education) to certify that educational
>materials are harm free (no errors) and that they are effective????????
>
>John M. Clement
>
>> >None of the 12 textbooks has an acceptable level of accuracy, said John
>> >Hubisz, a North Carolina State University physics professor who led the
>> >two-year survey, released earlier this month.
Dr. Lawrence D. Woolf; Phone: (858)-455-4475; www.sci-ed-ga.org
General Atomics; 3550 General Atomics Court; San Diego CA 92121-1194