Jb. Oliveira, UNDERSTANDING TEXTBOOK QUALITY IN THE USA - HOW GOVERNMENTS DISTORT THE MARKET, International review of education, 41(6), 1995, pp. 481-500
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.