Speaker 4
The market here is so big that publishers have traditionally written their textbooks to meet the Texas standards, and then they repackage and sell those textbooks in other states around the country, smaller states typically.
Speaker 1
That's Dan Quinn. He was a textbook editor who later served as the spokesperson for Texas Freedom Network, an independent watchdog organization that looks at the Texas State Board of Education. And he's right, Texas has a lot of power over our nation's textbooks. Like most incredibly mundane bureaucratic systems, the less sexy they appear, the greater impact they have. So let's
Speaker 1
The first thing you need to know is that most states purchase their textbooks on a district by district basis. So one school district could opt to use different materials than another neighboring school district. And there are other states that buy the same set of books through the whole state. These are called adoption states. Texas and California with their sizable populations are the most notable of these. But unlike California, which only adopts textbooks statewide for grades K through 8, Texas adopts textbooks statewide for all grades K through 12. This makes Texas the single largest market for textbooks in the country. And for decades, Texas only adopted five new books a year, each time focusing on a different subject area, which created an incredibly narrow and competitive
Speaker 3
market. From 1950 until the early 1980s, Texas had a five book list and you would submit your books. You would go through the state adoption process. The state board would have their public hearings. And if you approved, you in essence had your fishing license to go out to the schools and sell your program.
Speaker 1
This is David Anderson. He has been on all ends of this industry. He's worked for publishers, for the Texas Education Agency, for independent school districts and now as a lobbyist for Hill Co Partners, where he reps all of these interest
Speaker 3
groups. In Texas, it was a very efficient process in that regard. Get the book, make the list, go out school to school, get your adoptions. The districts would send their numbers in, the state we consolidate. They would order that number of books from the publisher and then they would shift them to school, to start school that August for that September.
Speaker 1
Essentially, the Texas system was set up as a one stop shop for publishers. You start by submitting your textbook to the textbook adoption committee. If it got through the committee, it went to the State Board of Education for approval. If the state board put your book on the list of five, you'd made a profit. And the kicker, you aren't just selling that book to Texas. You're selling it all across the country. Here's
Speaker 3
Jim again. Publishers put together printing plates. So if they had to make a change to a textbook to be used in Texas, everybody else got
Speaker 1
it. The actual technology of printing these books, particularly at the time, meant that standardizing the material was much more economical and practical. That way, the publishing company wouldn't need a whole different set of printing plates for Texas, Illinois, Washington, etc. It was ideal to just use one set of plates for all the textbooks used throughout the country.
Speaker 3
If a publisher had to make changes to his book to be accepted as in the top five, which they would be willing to do, then those were the books that were used elsewhere. So I think Texas had a disproportionate impact on other states as a byproduct of the limitations in the printing industry. Clearly, all of these things combined to say that my parents were in a very unique position to say what is in
Speaker 1
textbooks. Unique indeed. Because making that top five list was so crucial, so essential to these publishers that they were quite keen to keep the textbook adoption committee and the State Board of Education happy. Dan Quinn told me that publishers would try to make textbooks that the State Board of Education would approve. And in turn, the board wanted textbooks that activists, parents, and politicians would also all approve of.
Speaker 4
And of course, you know, that's an impossibility. There's just no way you're going to create a textbook that's going to meet everybody's approval.
Speaker 1
On its face, this might all seem fine. Shouldn't textbooks be standardized? So what if Texas orders more books than anyone else? What this means is that whoever makes these decisions in Texas has a lot of power. And what peaked my interest so many months ago is how someone who doesn't have a background in education could put their thumb on the scale. If say a quiet couple in East Texas could figure out a way to gain the ear of parents, activists, and politicians, and then influence the textbook adoption committee and the State Board of Education, well, perhaps they'll be the ones whose approval is sought in the end. But back in the early 1960s, Norma and Mel Gablere were still a long way off from being those two all-powerful influencers.
