Texas Eases Up on Evolution

By Ellie McGrath

The state's ruling on biology texts has national implications

When Texas talks, textbook publishers tend to listen. As one of the largest purchasers of school textbooks ($65 million this year), the state has regularly exerted a strong influence on the content of books used by schools across the country. After the Texas board of education accommodated Fundamentalist Christians in 1974 by requiring that evolution be taught as "only one of several explanations" of the origins of mankind, some publishers began to alter their texts to make them more widely acceptable. For instance, in the 1981 high school biology book published by Laidlaw Bros., a division of Doubleday, the word evolution did not appear, even in the glossary or index.

In 1982 the People for the American Way, a liberal group that wages First Amendment campaigns, began pressuring the Texas board to rescind its 1974 rule. They were joined last month by a powerful ally: Texas State Attorney General Jim Mattox concluded that the rule was unconstitutional because it was motivated by "a concern for religious sensibilities rather than a dedication to scientific truth." Two weeks ago the Texas board of education repealed the controversial measure. Said American Way Coordinator Michael Hudson: "This is going to free publishers to write about science accurately, unhampered by religious dogma. It undoes ten years of creationist influence on textbook content, and it will spill over into every state."

Interpreting the Texas decision as a triumph of Darwinists over creationists misses the main point. What the struggle shows is the important role that textbooks can play in the nationwide drive to restore educational excellence. The reversal comes at a time when Computer Magnate H. Ross Perot, as chairman of a committee on public education, is crusading to upgrade Texas schools. Holt, Rinehart & Winston's Robert Palmerton calls the decision "a plus for the state of Texas."

Some critics have charged that textbook adoption procedures like those in Texas have resulted in a general watering-down of the content of science texts, which in turn has contributed to a decline in student achievement in the sciences. According to Robert Yager, past president of the National Science Teachers Association, 90% of all science teachers use a textbook 90% of the time. Florida Governor Robert Graham, a leader in school reform, has observed, "States have upgraded requirements for graduation, raised teachers' salaries and enacted a variety of reforms. Parallel with these reforms must be a serious uplifting of the quality of textbooks." Most publishers maintain that big buyers, like Texas, do not influence their books. But analysts have noted that texts have been made less rigorous because teachers and students demanded easier books.

The textbook struggle in Texas has awakened other states to their potential power. California, North Carolina and Georgia are among the 22 other "adoption" states that make up a list of approved textbooks from which all state school districts choose, while New York and 27 other "open" states let each local district pick its own books. Obviously, the bigger the book order, the greater the clout. In March, Florida's Graham was host of a meeting in Tallahassee of publishers, legislators and educators from 22 states to talk about model schoolbook-selection procedures. Although the group could not agree on specifics, there was one strong message to the publishing industry: if standards are raised, the states will buy the books. California Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, an aggressive reformer, wants to form a textbook buyers' cooperative. Representatives of Florida and California, which together buy 13% of the nation's textbooks (in contrast with Texas' 6%), will hold a meeting later this month for interested educators. Says Honig: "If Texas can influence books that much on little matters, think how powerful we would be if we could all agree on criteria for textbooks."

--By Ellie McGrath.

Reported by Gary Taylor/Houston, with other bureaus

With reporting by Gary Taylor, other bureaus