[Textbook-l] the importance of writing to standards

Wed Jun 14 14:01:56 UTC 2006

At the university level, professors generally have a fair amount of
discretion as to what textbooks to offer, and there do not generally
exist detailed curriculum standards.  Even here, though, if one wishes
to produce a textbook for an Introductory German course, one ought to
follow more or less the sorts of things that professors will expect to
find covered there.

But at the grammar school level, adherence to standards is of crucial
importance.  If a book does not adhere to standards, then school
teachers MAY NOT use it.  Such work will then be a wasted effort in
large part.

There can of course be reasoned exceptions to the idea of writing to
standards, but in general, it is a very good idea.  As it turns out, it
is also quite helpful to generating and sustaining some consensus about
what a book is to contain.

What should a high school chemistry book cover?  Well, we could argue
until the end of time about what would be a good idea from a
philosophical point of view, and it would not be harmful to have several
different variants.  But at the same time, if the goal is to make
something that people will find actually useful, then adherence to
various official standards for what belongs in such a book is a great idea.

California and Florida publish very detailed standards.  I am sure many
other US states do as well.  In the UK, I believe there are similar
published standards.  I would assume that more or less the same thing is
true in almost all languages.

--Jimbo

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