Think of all the problems facing our public schools, and textbooks probably wouldn't make the top 10, but there is a textbook problem, a big one. Textbook errors, and there are more of them than you'd ever imagine. Education Reporter Celeste Ford reports. When it comes to math and science, eighth graders in this country lag far behind students in the top performing countries. There are many reasons, and poor textbooks appear to be one of them.
New research shows that they're riddled with mistakes, especially in science.
But the worst offenders are middle school science textbooks. A physics professor at North Carolina State University led a recent review of the 12 science textbooks used by most students in this country. Each contained errors and inconsistencies. One of the researchers is a veteran science teacher, Herb Gottlieb of Queens. He tested the experiments, and found they are often flawed.