CMS textbook full of mistakes

CMS textbook full of mistakes

Jan. 18, 2001

THESE TEXTBOOKS, used for reference in Cortez Middle School classrooms, have been cited in a study as being rife with grammatical and scientific mistakes. CMS officials say the books are affordable and fit with their curriculum.

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer

It was a bad year for Linda Ronstadt in 1997. Thousands of middle-school students opened their science textbooks to find a photo of the pop star identified as a silicon crystal doped with an arsenic impurity.

A recent study listed the Ronstadt error among 500 pages of documented mistakes found within some of the nation’s most popular middle-school science textbooks.

One of the worst culprits in the study proved to be Prentice Hall, the publisher of a series of textbooks currently used as a reference for eighth-grade science students at Cortez Middle School.

John Hubisz, a North Carolina State University physics professor who headed up the study, published the results on the American Association of Physics Teachers web site earlier this month.

"The books have a very large number of errors, many irrelevant photographs, complicated illustrations, experiments that could not possibly work, and diagrams and drawings that represented impossible situations," Hubisz explained in the report.

The study was funded with a $64,000 grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Hubisz employed a variety of reviewers with physics and teaching backgrounds to analyze the textbooks.

The Cortez Middle School uses the 1997 edition of the Prentice Hall "Science" Series, a multi-volume set of books focusing on specific scientific areas.

One of the errors Hubisz found within these books is a full-page picture of the Statue of Liberty raising her left hand instead of her right — the publishers had inverted the negative before printing the picture.

In addition, the periodic table in Appendix E lists two series of rare-earth elements: Lanthanoid and Actinoid, which are actually named Lanthanide and Actinide.

On page 79 of the same book a caption listed under pictures of diamonds, pencil leads, and blocks of coal reads, "Here you see three different forms of the pure element: Diamond, graphite, and coal." Hubisz’s study points out that a pencil lead is not a form of the pure element.

Ken Whited, an eighth-grade science teacher at Cortez Middle School, said that although he has noticed errors in grammar and punctuation, the book’s scientific contents seem to be sound.

"One of the reasons why we picked that textbook is because the science content is accurate for what we’re teaching, and the reading level is appropriate for what we teach, and a lot of the other auxiliary materials that go with it are helpful," he explained.

"Did we realize the extent of how bad the grammatical errors are in the book? Probably not, but we know there are some there. Almost all publishers have some problems. Prentice Hall is one of the worst on grammar and on sentence structure."

Some of the more egregious factual errors occur within the 2000 edition of the Prentice Hall textbooks. These books illustrate a prism bending light in the wrong direction, and list the directional compass clockwise as: North, West, South, and East. In addition, the equator is placed around the globe at Tijuana, Tucson, Texas and Tallahassee.

One of the reasons Prentice Hall is used at the middle school is because of the integrated curriculum. Each year, science teachers cover material from various scientific areas, including chemistry, physics, geology, and biology.

"We cannot get a textbook that covers more than 35 to 40 percent of our curriculum," explained Whited. The Prentice Hall series not only covers different areas, but is reasonably priced at $10 a book. Science textbooks normally cost $55 to $60 on the open market.

But even the error-prone, inexpensive Prentice Hall books are too pricey to provide one for each student.

"We have a definite science budget," Whited said. "I cannot buy science books for every student every fifth year. There’s not enough money in the science-textbook budget to do that."

As a result, each of the two science teachers has a classroom copy of the textbooks — 40 books that cost $400 for each set.

Byron Wiehe, Cortez Middle School principal, explained that along with Prentice Hall, the students’ science education is supplemented by a variety of textbooks and teaching sources.

In addition, the science teachers create their own tests, experiments and lectures, rather than relying on any of the Prentice Hall ready-made standards.

Wiehe said that although he has never received a complaint about errors in middle-school textbooks, he would encourage parents to review a proposed textbook before it is adopted.

Wiehe estimated that fewer than 1 percent of the district’s parents have reviewed a textbook and made comments on it during the adoption process.

"To be honest with you, very, very few people go and review the book. But it’s our job to try not to adopt a textbook like Prentice Hall that has blatant mistakes," he said.

"You never know what shows up in a textbook, and you’re hoping, when you’re reviewing it with five or six different people, that you’re going to catch those things."

Textbook adoption occurs every five years, and includes a team of teachers who review the text for state standards, its appropriateness for the grade level, testing procedures, and "just whether or not it is a good book," said Wiehe. The teacher’s choice is then available for public review, and ultimately for approval by the school board.

Teachers, however, are not to blame, said Hubisz. Prentice Hall has been publishing textbooks with the same errors in edition after edition since the early 1980s. Prentice Hall has blamed the errors partially on fluctuating state standards, and has performed an audit of the books with errors posted on their web site.

Hubisz blames the errors on content reviewers who do not have a background in physical science, and greedy publishers who advertise "new" and "updated" information within each edition.

"They present the books as if they’re if they are brand-new books," said Hubisz. "It’s incredible. You expect reference books to be highly accurate, studied by a content person — someone who really took the time to research them.

"Publishers are much more interested in satisfying a group of selection-committee members who typically have little knowledge of the subject matter, but are impressed by pretty pictures and seemingly up-to-date new information which for the intended audience is not at all relevant," Hubisz continued.

Hubisz partially blames faulty textbooks for the low-performing scores of Americans on internationally standardized science tests.

Hubisz said that the 1984 and 1977 Prentice Hall textbooks are much more accurate than the latest editions.

"If we go back far enough, we can find a good book."