Former Publisher Says Textbook System Hurting Kids

Here's a timely example of why I'm an increasingly big fan of the Casey Journalism Center's daily collection of stories: The CJC caught a national story on the evergreen issue of textbook adoption (A Textbook Case of Failure) that contained some interesting ideas and that I didn't see anywhere else.

"President Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative put almost every imaginable part of the U.S. education system under a microscope, establishing national standards for teacher training, student testing and basic funding. But glaring in its omission from the program is any significant examination of that most basic of classroom tools, the textbook."

Now I'm not sure what Congress could or should do about textbooks, or whether letting districts make their own textook decisions is the way to go, but it might be the first time I've seen a former Saxon official say that the current system is "unintentionally hurting the kids.”