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Guidance: Full Article

At school we strive to provide your children with the best possible materials to ensure that they get an education which provides them with the skills they need to be successful. One important teaching tool that we use and that we feel you need to know more about is textbooks.

In your schools, we continually make sure that the textbooks with which we teach your children are up-to-date. As we learn more about students’ learning styles, we find that textbooks must be updated periodically in order to meet and fulfill the growing needs of your children.

Before any textbooks are used in classrooms, committees are formed for the purpose of selecting the appropriate textbooks for each subject area. A textbook selection committee is usually made up of teachers representing the various grades and the courses offered in a subject area, administrators, and parents representing the different populations of students. Representatives from a university or a vocational-technical school may serve on the committee to give advice and direction in future trends.

The first step for a committee is to evaluate the school’s existing curriculum for a subject area. The committee gathers information about the curriculum’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as concerns of parents, teachers, and administrators. Next, the committee develops or updates the goals and objectives of the curriculum. These goals and objectives are used by the committee as a guide for determining which textbooks meet the requirements for the curriculum and enhance student learning.

Textbook selection committees often follow an evaluation process and use evaluation instruments. An example of these instruments is one that gives weight to categories such as course content, organization of the book, auxiliary materials, readability, physical characteristics, and special considerations. Assigning a weight to the categories allows appropriate emphasis to be placed on each category. For instance, course content is much more important than the physical characteristics of the book and, therefore, receives a higher weight value. Committee members rate the textbooks in each of the categories using a scale of one (low) to five (high).

When evaluating course content, the committee looks to see how well the textbook meets the goals and objectives of the curriculum. In considering the organization of the book, the committee members look for lesson development, type and quality of exercises, and the type of student evaluation program. Auxiliary materials that assist the teacher in presenting the lesson are also evaluated. These materials range from teacher manuals to supplementary materials including workbooks, test booklets, solution manuals, and enrichment and remedial materials. Each textbook is judged on the quality of the supplementary materials as well as the amount and types of materials provided. In judging readability, the committee looks to see whether directions and explanations are clear and whether the reading level is appropriate.

A look at physical characteristics helps committee members judge the attractiveness and durability of the book. Type size and layout of the book are also important in determining whether the book is functional. Special considerations are given when determining whether the textbook stereotypes a particular group of people.

Once the committee has chosen the textbooks that best meet the requirements of the curriculum, teachers in the subject area evaluate them and choose the one that they feel would be most appropriate. The committee takes all recommendations into consideration and chooses the textbooks that will be used. As the textbooks are selected at each grade level, the committee looks for continuity in the textbooks from kindergarten through twelfth grade in order to provide a total and complete program for the students.

We encourage all parents to become familiar with the textbooks used in their children’s classes. These books are an essential element in today’s schools, and their selection is a responsibility that we take very seriously. Please feel free to contact your child’s teacher or school for more information or to see how you can get involved.

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