Publisher Will Replace VA Textbooks For Free

By Amber Lester Kennedy Thursday, January 13, 2011

In response to criticism of errors found in its textbooks, Five Ponds Press announced Tuesday it intends to replace all copies of “Our Virginia” and “Our America: To 1865” for free.

The books have come under scrutiny since October, when The Washington Post published a story highlighting errors in “Our Virginia.” William and Mary Professor Carol Sheriff had spotted mistakes when she flipped through the book, brought home by her daughter, a student in Williamsburg-James City County Schools. WJCC purchased the books for $88,825.

Sheriff found one big factual error: a section devoted to the role of African-Americans in the Civil War stated that Gen. Stonewall Jackson had commanded two black battalions. Jackson had died by the time the Confederacy allowed blacks to enlist, and most historians disputed the idea that black battalions existed in the South.

After Sheriff’s discovery was publicized, more historians examined the book at the behest of the Virginia Department of Education and found several more inaccuracies, including misstatements about when Thomas Jefferson took office as president and when the U.S. entered World War I. The review team also found grammatical errors, misspellings and missing words; they called for the book to be removed from classrooms.

“It’s certainly welcome news that the publisher is going to provide corrected books at no charge to the school divisions that adopted the book,” said Charles Pyle, director of communications for the Virginia Department of Education. He said the purpose of the state’s review was not to help Five Ponds edit its books, but to provide timely information to teachers who need to decide how to use the books in their classrooms.

The books were written by Joy Masoff and published in 2010 by Five Ponds Press, based in Weston, Conn. “Our Virginia” is used in fourth-grade classrooms and “Our America: To 1865” is used in sixth-grade classrooms. When the first mistake was discovered, Five Ponds Press pledged to send stickers to schools to cover the incorrect paragraph. Now that the state review has been completed, however, the publisher plans to replace the books this summer, and is revising online editions of the books.

In a letter published on the company’s web site, publisher Lou Scolnik said the company was taking the “unprecedented step” of issuing free replacement copies to the schools and districts that purchased the first edition. “We strive to provide high quality textbooks for Virginia students and are embarrassed that we failed to detect these mistakes during our production process,” Scolnik said. “However, we hope that replacing the books will meet educators’ and students’ needs.”

Although he admitted the books contain errors, he said that many of the mistakes discovered by the Department of Education’s panel were corrected before the First Editions were printed and do not appear in the books currently used by students. He also said some reviewers took issue with the “scope and content” of the Virginia SOLs when pointing out errors; he said some of what they criticized were not technically errors.

Scolnik said the company is now working with a historian from “a prominent university in Virginia” to respond to the Department of Education’s concerns and correct the book’s second editions. He said the company plans to respond point-by-point to the Department of Education by Jan. 21. The first set of revisions will be available online by Jan. 15.

At the state’s Board of Education meeting tomorrow, State Superintendent Patricia Wright will open a discussion about how to improve the state’s textbook review process. When the books were reviewed last summer, they were evaluated by three elementary school teachers, who based their review on the books’ teachability and continuity with the state’s standards, Pyle said. When she meets with the board, Wright will suggest that the state require publishers submit documented evidence that their books were reviewed by academic experts.

“The lesson is that we need to improve our process, and the obvious first step is to require publishers to provide a higher level of documentation that their books have been thoroughly reviewed by qualified individuals with academic credentials who are willing to stand up publicly and attest to their accuracy,” Pyle said.