Teachers' ability to act as full professionals is significantly limited by textbook programs in state and local curricula as well as the use of standardized achievement tests. Curriculum reform and upgrading of teacher professionalism go hand in hand. (SK)

Faced with a market that puts a premium on newness, artwork, and copyright date, the textbook industry seems to have been forced into a hectic textbook revision cycle in which improvement in instructional quality takes a poor second place to more superficial changes. While educators think they are getting newer, different, and, therefore better…

To determine how textbook publishers have changed the content of teachers' manuals designed to accompany basal reading series, a study was undertaken to examine manuals published by two different publishers since the l920s. Ten fifth grade manuals were reviewed for physical characteristics, tests, number of stories, instructional suggestions,…