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2003 high school US History textbook ratings

Texas has approved these high school U.S. History books for 2003 local adoption, which we rank as follows:

Better

 The American Republic Since 1877  ( Glencoe, 2003 )
Overall superior scholarship to previous generations of high school U.S. History books seen in Texas in the last 40 years:
  • More positive view of multicultural consensus and unity; less negative politically-correct emphasis on race conflict and ethnic alienation
  • Exceptional inclusion of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian limited government perspectives on U.S. Constitutional issues
  • Exemplary presentation of recent interpretations of industrialization, big business, and demand-side and supply-side economics

Fair

 America: Pathways to the Present – Modern American History  ( Prentice, 2003 )

Poor

 The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century  ( McDougal, 2003 )

Worst

 American Nation in the Modern Era  ( Holt, 2003 )
Disproportionate, agenda-driven stress on anti-social history over political and economic themes:
  • Divisive, inflammatory, unprofessional stereotypes of whites as oppressors and people of color as victims, polarizing multicultural populations
  • Fragmentary coverage, incoherent explanations, low prioritization of key terms, issues, and concepts in U.S. Constitutional history
  • Dubious grasp of some topics in U.S. economic history; definite disinterest in questioning old left anti-capitalist, pro-big government prejudices
This text contained the most remaining uncorrected factual errors of these four books.
Let us e-mail you that list.
Our reviewer served on the Texas State Board of Education-appointed Social Studies Review Committee during the 1996 Social Studies curriculum writing process. His anal­y­ses evaluate these books' subject-matter content. They supple­ment Texas' State Text­book Review Panel, which check­ed conform­ity to course standards; and balance publish­ers' sales pitches, which stress teaching aids. We can e-mail you our list of these four books' 249 total factual errors missed by pub­lish­ers, by an $80,000 Texas Tech review team hired by the Texas Education Agency, and by the Texas Educa­tion Commissioner's Report on Corrections of Factual Errors. No public school publisher funded our reviews in any way. We have no financial stake in any text­book company. Unlike pub­lish­er sales reps, we have no monetary interest in any textbook adop­tion outcome. Our support comes from concern­ed indi­vid­uals and a few small foundations, which to our know­ledge have no ties to the public school textbook industry. We are the Texas group noted by the Wall Street Journal and ABC's Good Morning America for finding hundreds of high school U.S. History textbook factual errors in 1991-92; and by ABC's 20/20 in 1999 for finding hundreds of high school World History textbook factual errors.
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