Textbook on Islam

I read with interest and amusement your article about cultural bias in the social studies textbooks. There are many good books that the state could buy which give more adequate coverage to minorities. Unfortunately, textbook adoptions aren’t voted on, they’re bought.

From 1968 to 1972, while I was coordinator of instructional materials for the Las Virgenes schools, I served on social studies textbook adoption committees. Like my colleagues, I was flooded with offers of dinner and lunch at luxurious restaurants, given gifts of flowers and other “perks,” and presented with all sorts of inducements so that I would approve the textbooks of the larger companies. The system was nauseating. When I complained to the “powers to be” in the social science field, they told me such procedures were par for the course. The bribery process goes on with adoptions in every subject area. Smaller companies haven’t a chance to get their really good books adopted. Once the public realizes this, perhaps textbooks will improve.

MAXINE ASHER, Brentwood