Virginia to advise on teaching around textbooks' errors

State schools Superintendent Patricia Wright plans to give guidance to teachers on how to teach accurately when their textbooks are riddled with errors.

She also will arrange discussions in January on changing the textbook review process to prevent future errors like the ones recently discovered in multiple history books.

"Virginia students deserve textbooks that reflect the quality of the commonwealth's nationally recognized history and social science standards, and as the errors found by the reviewers clearly show, the review process must be improved," she said in a statement.

The state called for a review of history textbooks after a controversial mistake was found this fall in "Our Virginia: Past and Present," a fourth-grade social studies book from Five Ponds Press.

The book claimed thousands of black soldiers fought for the Confederacy, including two black battalions under Stonewall Jackson - a belief widely refuted by historians.

The committee of five historians reviewed books by Five Ponds and publishing giants such as McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin. They turned up dozens of errors, including the date of the first battle at Bull Run; where Confederate defenses fell on April 2, 1865 (Petersburg, not Richmond); and the omission in "Our Virginia " of both the Great Depression and the Vietnam War.

"Virtually no page is without error; many pages have several," retired Virginia Commonwealth University historian Mary Miley Theobald wrote in her review of another Five Ponds book, "Our America to 1865."

"There are spelling errors, errors of historical fact, grammatical errors, faulty illustrations, mistaken maps, punctuation errors, careless errors of repetition, and inexplicable changes in font style," she wrote.

Wright said she will direct her staff to provide guidance to teachers on how to "ensure that classroom instruction is not distorted by the misinformation found in these textbooks."

She's also proposing that publishers be required to prove their books have been reviewed by "competent authorities."

Locally, schools in Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Suffolk and Norfolk have said they used "Our Virginia," either as the main adopted textbook or as an optional resource.

In Norfolk, schools spokeswoman Elizabeth Mather said officials are watching the state process with interest. She noted that teachers use many resources in the classroom, not just textbooks.

In Suffolk, after notifying teachers of the error about the black soldiers, officials have been reviewing how "Our Virginia " is used, spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw said in an e-mail. Additional direction will be shared with teachers next week.

"Suffolk Public Schools, of course, wants students to learn accurate history lessons, so the division will look to the State Superintendent's direction on how to best monitor textbook content," she wrote.

Chesapeake and Virginia Beach officials were not available for comment.

Elisabeth Hulette, (757) 222-5216, elisabeth.hulette@pilotonline.com