Will Texas Textbook Decision Spur On E-Readers?

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Just removed from the 8th grade social studies curriculum in Texas: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

And that's just the beginning.

Other changes to come in history textbooks for middle schoolers and high schoolers in Texas:

1. Jefferson Davis will be elevated to the same status as Abraham Lincoln.

2. Separation of church and state - Is it really constitutional?

3. The McCarthy Hearings to be portrayed in a more positive light (the lighter side of blacklisting?)

4. Students will be required to explore how global organizations like the UN are undermining U.S. sovereignity.

5. Students will be required to study how the U.S.dollar has been devalued since we went off the gold standard.

These standards will be in place for the next 10 years. This is a big deal because Texas is one of the biggest purchasers of school books.

Traditionally, Texas textbook standards impact what the rest of us get. Textbook publishers are loathe to write alternate editions for the other 49 states.

Well, maybe it's time! 

The textbook market is $5.5 billion a year in this country. Make no mistake, this is what Amazon, Apple, Sony and Barnes and Noble (just to name a few) are all salivating over.

If secondary schools started adopting eReaders in the classroom, alternate editions (like history books that note the United States actually has veto power on the UN Security Council and therefore it would be impossible for our sovereignity to be undermined. I'm just saying...) wouldn't be cost prohibitive and I wouldn't have to worry about this nonsense up in Connecticut.

It's a lousy day for history students and teachers. But one day we make look back on this as a watershed moment for eBooks.

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Renee Oricchio

Renee Oricchio is a technology writer and former supervising news producer for CNN Financial News. She has been covering the computer industry since 1987.

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