New studies of textbooks calling themselves “Common Core Aligned” suggest that schools and teachers should remember that a “buyer beware” policy is essential when it comes to purchasing quality textbooks.
William Schmidt, a professor of statistics and education at Michigan State University in East Lansing and head of a research team that recently analyzed about 700 textbooks from 35 textbook series for grades K-8 that are now being used by 60 percent of public school children in the United States, dismissed most purveyors of such claims as “snake oil salesmen” who have done little more than slap shiny new stickers on the same books they’ve been selling for years.
Other researchers agreed. University of Southern California professor Morgan Polikoff reached a similar conclusion after analyzing seven 4th grade math textbooks used in Florida.
In response, textbook companies assert that researchers were not looking at the right materials. For example, Lisa Carmona, the vice president of the pre-K-5 portfolio at McGraw-Hill Education, based in Columbus, Ohio, expressed disappointment that the researchers “didn’t pick a more current program” to analyze.
Some of Polikoff’s findings, she pointed out, were based on supplemental materials her company copyrighted in 2012 in order to help extend schools’ use of her company’s 2009 Math Connects program, which is no longer marketed. That textbook has been replaced by the McGraw-Hill My Math program for K-5, a digital and print resource created especially for the Common Core, Ms. Carmona said.
The reality of the situation may be somewhere in the middle. It seems probable that many of the textbooks companies have dubbed “Common Core Aligned”, which are largely the same as they ever were, will continue to be used by teachers who might not have access to other resources or know any better than to continue using such texts. That does not necessarily make the publishing companies completely culpable because they have often worked directly with the authors of Common Core in order to create new, often digital, material for teachers to use. The issue is whether or not these new materials will get into the hands of teachers and be successfully implemented. It certainly takes a lot of work to completely redo textbooks, and publishing companies don’t want to risk losing out on the $9 billion annual market.
Following is a graphic that represents some of the discrepancies noted by the recent studies:
For more information, please visit: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/05/23textbooks_ep.h33.html
