Title: The Mathematics of K-8 Textbook Adoption in California
Speaker: Bill Jacob, University of California, Santa Barbara

This talk will examine 1994 and 1997 California K-8 mathematics adoptions, and the role of university mathematicians in the process. These review panels (I served on both) had to base their recommendations on criteria set in the 1992 California Mathematics Framework, which like the NCTM standards, has become somewhat controversial in recent years. In spite of a strong endorsement from the 1997 review panel, the California State Board of Education rejected two widely used NSF funded curriculum projects. In their rejection memo, the Board cited serious problems with California Education Code 60200.5 which states that instructional materials must "be designed to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, ..., and to instruct them in the manners and morals and principles of a free government." We will examine these "problems" and other "serious factual errors" uncovered in these texts by State Board members.