Starting in September 2005, Capital Region health-education teachers who purchase new textbooks will have their choice of three nationally distributed textbooks. All three adhere to the so-called "abstinence-only" curriculum, which advises students to abstain from sex until marriage and avoids any mention of contraception or safer-sex options.
New York state has never endorsed the abstinence-only approach and probably never will. Study after study has judged abstinence-only an educational disaster, leading to increased rates of unprotected sex, which generally boosts teen pregnancy and STD infection rates [“Ab staining From the Truth,” Newsfront, Dec. 9, 2004]. Critics of abstinence-only methods say a better model is the so-called "abstinence first" approach, which advises students to remain abstinent but also teaches them about contraception and family planning.
Yet abstinence-only is about to become the NATIONAL standard for health- education textbooks. How did this happen? Who decided, based on what instructional and scientific criteria?
For answers, we must travel 1,850 miles to the Austin headquarters of the Texas State Board of Education. Each fall, the Texas Board of Education considers a new crop of textbooks for adoption. The 15 elected members of this powerful group can vote to approve a textbook as "conforming" to Texas state law, which means the state will pay for local school districts to use the textbook, or to reject it, which effectively shuts the textbook out of the $400 million Texas market.
Publishers compete energetically to win the Texas Board of Education’s adoption sweepstakes. In their strenuous efforts, publishers break bread and cut deals with the most powerful political players—not teachers, not school board officials, not parents or government officials, but rather Texas' community of religious conservatives, whose support or opposition can make or break a textbook adoption.
Consider the fate of two health-education textbooks submitted for adoption in 1994. Holt Rinehart Winston proposed a modestly worded abstinence-first textbook. Texas conservatives sharply disapproved. Even worse, the textbook used line drawings to show girls how to conduct a self-examination for breast cancer. The notion of taxpayer-funded pictures of breasts drove conservatives wild with rage. The Holt textbook went down to defeat.
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Mindful of the 1994 experience, progressive activists prepared in 2004 for another harsh battle over sex education. But they had reckoned without the textbook executives' keen instinct for self-preservation. "The books came precensored," says Steve Schafersman, president of Texans for Science. "Textbook manufacturers can tell which way the wind is blowing far ahead of time. They capitulated in advance."
Holt's new textbook corrects the previous edition’s ideological missteps. For example, Holt Lifetime Health provides a list of eight tips for preventing STD infection. The list starts with "Practice abstinence" and moves on to such helpful tips as "Get plenty of rest," "Respect yourself," and "Go out as a group." But the list omits Holt's recommendation from the 1994 edition: "Using a latex condom properly during sexual intercourse reduces the risk of getting an STD during sex."
California's market size outstrips that of Texas, yet Texas has become far more powerful. Most state-adoption states are in the South, a result of banding together after the Civil War to pressure educational publishers to supply them with pro-Confederate history textbooks. Officials in these states treat Texas as the lead steer, often adopting and purchasing the same textbooks that have been adopted and purchased in Texas. Also, California adopts locally at the high school level, leaving Texas as the only big player in that market.
And New York? Even though Texas and New York have roughly equivalent student populations, New York exercises little influence over the writing of textbooks. That’s because ours is one of 29 “open states” that allow individual school districts (and in some cases individual schools) to choose their own textbooks. “If New York City is [adopting textbooks] on a different schedule from Albany, we can't do a different textbook for each locality,” says Driesler. He insists that publishers do customize for localities, but mostly through the teacher's edition or supplements rather than the edition that students read.
And conservative influence does not begin or end with health education. Consider the changes made to these 2002 textbooks adopted by the Texas Board of Education:
Evolution: In Our World Today: People, Places and Issues (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill), a passage noting that "glaciers formed the Great Lakes millions of years ago" was altered to read "in the distant past" after a conservative reviewer attacked the phrase as merely "the opinion of some scientist who support [sic] the theory of evolution."
Islam: A passage in World Explorer: People, Places and Cultures (Prentice Hall) noting that the Quran teaches "the importance of honesty, honor, giving to others and having love and respect for . . . families" "was deleted after a conservative reviewer branded it "more propaganda" for Islam.
Global warming: Prentice Hall dropped an entire section on global warming from World Explorer after a reviewer charged that it would "prepare students to look to the government for solutions to problems."
"Get plenty of rest" is considered better advice than "be safe"? What is wrong with this country?
Starting in September 2005, Capital Region health-education teachers who purchase new textbooks will have their choice of three nationally distributed textbooks. All three adhere to the so-called "abstinence-only" curriculum, which advises students to abstain from sex until marriage and avoids any mention of contraception or safer-sex options. 
