UNDERSTANDING TEXTBOOK QUALITY IN THE USA - HOW GOVERNMENTS DISTORT THE MARKET

Textbooks deliver education and shape the daily routines of classrooms . Even in countries where schools enjoy ample and various instructiona l resources, textbooks are the single most important support for teach ers and students. It is not surprising, then, that textbooks are a maj or concern of states, schools, teachers, parents, publishers, and the research community. But textbooks often become a scapegoat for educati onal evils. In the USA, government regulation, special interest groups , and publishers exert pressure on textbook policies and state and loc al adoption processes. The result: textbooks are published to conform to a market distorted by government regulation. This paper discusses h ow their quality is constrained by government and special interest gro ups that interfere with the natural course of regulations and markets.