In Episode 2 of DON’s podcast series about the education system in the United States, co-hosts Brian Le (@brianlele) and Elizabeth Fisher (@_elizabethafisher_) cover the historical and contemporary role of textbooks in K-12 classrooms, Texas’s disproportionate influence on the textbook publishing industry, and who is being protected and harmed by censorship and misinformation in textbooks.

Sources:

Brunner, Tyler. "Censorship in History Textbooks: How Knowledge of the Past is Being Constructed in Schools," Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado: Vol. 3 : No. 2 , Article 9, 2013.

Oliveira, João Batista. “Understanding Textbook Quality in the USA: How Governments Distort the Market.” International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift Für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale De L'Education, Vol. 41, No. 6, 1995, pp. 481–500.

“Texas Mother Teaches Textbook Company a Lesson on Accuracy,” The New York Times

“Showdown over science in Texas,” Slate

“Texas Takes Steps to Improve Accuracy of Future Textbooks. Except It Doesn’t.,” Slate

“How AP History became so controversial that Oklahoma is trying to ban it,” Vox

“How Book Banning Works,” How Stuff Works