Re: Middle School Physical Science Texts: dishonesty

["John M. Clement" <clement@HAL-PC.ORG>]

While exposing bad products may help, a better product in competition with
the bad ones would be a good solution.  If a single author, or even a small
team came up with a good text, could it take over the market?  As an interim
solution could an older, better book be reprinted?  This points out the
problem that many of the good scientists who are also textbook writers have
apparently ignored the middle and elementary school market.  Could anyone in
the physics community be induced to work on a good middle school book, in
collaboration with chemists, and biologists?  Would one of the PER research
teams be willing to work on such a project?

Having a good book does not necessarily mean that it will be adopted or
used.  An example is the Minds on Physics series, which is excellent for
physics education.  Because it does not fit the conventional mode, I suspect
that it is not widely used, while the most popular book is a bloated volume
which gives students and teachers little conceptual support.  Remember that
the publishers have been rewarded by the textbook adopters.  The states and
school districts have often praised the books, and then used them even when
the submitted sample was blank.  Who is more dishonest?  Who is more
unintelligent?  The most widely used physics book was adopted by at least
one school district because it supplied so many extra goodies such as
overhead transparencies.  Teachers are so overworked that they will buy a
book just because they think it reduces their work load, irrespective of its
quality.

This is like the automobile safety controversy.  When the reports about the
problems with cars came out, there was really nothing that the average
motorist could do.  It took regulations to force the manufacturers to add
the necessary safety features.  Perhaps this report could serve as the
wakeup call that spurs people to action.

This problem is not unique to science.  I have been told by a history
teacher that the history books are filled with errors.  In addition I
noticed an English vocabulary book that used incorrect science to illustrate
the usage of some vocabulary terms.

John M. Clement


> On Sat, 24 Feb 2001, Jane Jackson wrote:
>
> >      On Feb. 20 I posted excerpts from the introduction to John Hubisz'
> > report on widely-used middle school texts in physical science.
> John and his
> > team of physics teacher reviewers find ALL of them UNSATISFACTORY.
>
>
> Is anyone else struck by the apparent DISHONESTY of these publishers?
>
> I mean, who would ever put an "author's" name on a book who didn't
> actually contribute?  The paper mentions that the definition of "author"
> is different in the textbook biz.  I don't buy this.  Lying is lying, and
> if someone didn't write part of the book, calling them an "author" is
> simply lying to customers in order to sell more books.  If it becomes
> traditional and acceptable to lie to your customers, this doesn't alter
> the fact that lies are being told.
>
> The section about fake "authors" is not the only dishonesty mentioned. In
> total, this paper on textbooks gives the impression that the publishers
> are a pretty slippery, predatory bunch, sort of like used car salesmen. We
> might tolerate buying cars from slimy salesmen who use dishonest trickery,
> but such dishonesty in the field of education or science inspires my
> revulsion.
>
> The vast number of errors to me seems not to be the real problem, instead
> it's just a symptom that the K-12 textbook biz is run by people with
> serious character flaws.  When you point out somebody's mistakes, honest
> people examine themselves.  Dishonest people take it as an insult and
> become defensive (never actually performing an HONEST examination to see
> if the mistakes are real.)  As long as the publishers are the kind of
> people who would prefer to lie to themselves about errors rather than
> fixing them, then those who point out errors are the enemy, and the cause
> of the errors has not been fixed.
>
> What could be done?  I don't know.  The first thing to do is to not
> underestimate the size of the problem.  Fixing the science textbooks might
> be as easy as converting politicians into honest people.  It might be
> easier to vote them all out of office.  Not easy to do with businesses
> unless you can institute a massive boycott.
>
> Maybe exposing the lies would be better than exposing the errors.  Hey, if
> the "authors" of a science textbook loudly and publicly denounced the
> publisher for their dishonest actions, that might make people sit up and
> take notice.  After all, it's easy for publishers to create distracting
> arguments redarding whether errors are real or not, and the general public
> wouldn't care much.  On the other hand, publicizing blatant corruption and
> asking for help in ending it could attract enough help to make a
> difference.
>
> ((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) )
> )))))))))))))))))))))
> William J. Beaty                             SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
> billb@eskimo.com                             http://www.amasci.com
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