In the fall of 1984, the Education Commission of the States (ECS) was awarded a grant from the U.S. Secretary of Education's Discretionary Fund to identify alternative state roles for improving instructional materials in mathematics. To help state leaders define an appropriate and effective role in upgrading these materials, ECS proposed first to identify the complex problems surrounding the development and adoption of materials and then to suggest new ways for state leaders to work with other state leaders, districts and publishers to improve instructional materials. To identify what was wrong with textbooks, more than 70 teachers, professors, publishers and state and local education agency staff were asked to participate in a survey. This document is a synthesis of the survey responses. The survey instrument appears in Appendix A; survey participants are listed in Appendix B. (CW)