When elementary school teachers serve on a committee to select a new basal reader program, they must represent their school's unique needs. To develop their awareness, the selection committee should address such questions as: What kind of program improvements are teachers hoping to get? What kind of articulation will be needed between this program…

To assist school districts in selecting science instructional materials, the California State Department of Education has developed detailed descriptions of state-adopted elementary programs and texts. This guide includes an annotated index of all adopted materials and separate descriptions for each program or series. The index contains a listing…

Learning objectives, developed for a core humanities course, are presented as they were submitted to the faculty and administrators of Miami-Dade Community College for approval and suggestions. First, overall course objectives are enumerated, and then specific objectives are stated, arranged by hierarchical level according to Bloom's Taxonomy.…

This EPIE report contains parallel, common language descriptions of 26 life, physical, and earth science offerings for junior high school students from nine commercial publishers. Materials have been designed for one-year courses and have copyright dates from 1975-1980. Information for each program is presented under the following headings: (1)…

Censorship in school libraries and classroom reading materials is discussed. Views of influential groups and individuals on the reasons for censorship are outlined, and suggestions for preventing censorship battles in schools are given. (FG)

This geography textbook assessment is a tool and a guide for teachers and curriculum administrators who are responsible for adopting classroom geography materials. The assessment's goal is to help teachers identify the geography textbooks that are most compatible with the content goals of the geography education reform movement as stated in "The…

In compliance with Title 14, Section 12 of the Delaware Code, this document sets forth statewide policies and guidelines developed by the Delaware State Board of Education for selecting textbooks and other educational materials. After a brief introduction and a policy statement, recommendations are provided to local school districts for…

The guide describes how committee hearings can be used in an educational as well as a political context. A committee hearing approach can be used in education (1) when a committee suited to carry out the evaluation task already exists; (2) when a written report is likely to be ignored or to have minimal effect; (3) when the decision-maker or…

The papers in this publication will help elementary and secondary educators integrate economic concepts and tools into consumer education courses. Responses to the papers are also included. There are eight chapters. Chapter one describes the project that is the subject of this publication and that resulted in the national seminar. The goal of the…

The role of religion in American society has been ignored by textbook publishers and is not being taught in U.S. schools. The support for the separation of church and state is eroding as a result. Includes a sidebar providing supplementary resource materials on religion for use by teachers. (MD)

A checklist of criteria for determining a text's appropriateness is provided. Suggestions assume four needs: current methodology, guidance for nonnative teachers, students' special needs, and relevance to the sociocultural environment of instruction. Criteria cover general considerations, speech, grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, and…

A national survey reveals that, although selection and review procedures can help when school materials are challenged, there is no substitute for good community relations in reducing those challenges in the first place. (Author/JM)

Based on expert review and research, this book provides an innovative standard and guide to social studies textbooks used in kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms for content, style, and design. The standards provide a foundation for individuals to select satisfactory textbooks and to help educators and school boards in the adoption of…

The 10 guidelines in this guide to analyzing children's books serve as a starting point for evaluating children's literature from the perspective of racist and sexist attitudes. (1) Check the illustrations. Look for stereotypes, for tokenism, and for who's doing what. (2) Check the story lines. Look for subtle forms of bias in such approaches as…

This article summarizes the literature on effective textbook instruction and offers suggestions for special educators and content instructors to work together to maximize effective instruction with students who have reading difficulties. Specific techniques for activating prior knowledge, helping students become more active thinkers, and…