Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Now perhaps they are and perhaps they ARE attempting to influence and control what my kids are taught in Colorado or Alaska. If so then they are overstepping their bounds by forcing what others outside the state of TX are learning.
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They're not attempting to influence other states; they're attempting to convince publishers to sell them the books they want. If that influences other states' education standards, that's not TX's concern. If other states don't want to be stuck matching TX's educational choices, they're free to not buy from the publishers who cater to TX's textbook preferences.
That this is a problem--and I grant that it is--is a matter of corporate effective monopolies, not TX's ideology-pushing. The problem comes from large corporations having the economic resources to push small ones out of business, without breaking any laws.
A state looking for books for its next school year can either go to Macmillan and check its catalog of "educational textbooks grade 1-12 in 7 subjects"--or shop around at several dozen small publishers, trying to figure out who publishes good books about history and what grade level they'd be suitable for. And while that's a *terrific* approach to schoolbooks, it's time-consuming, and most states don't have enough time for it.
But their lack of time (read: lack of money put towards education, because with enough money they could hire competent reviewers to do this, every year) is not TX's fault.