Educational Research Analysts
2003 5th grade Social Studies textbook ratings

Texas approved these 5th grade Social Studies books for 2003 local adoption, which we rank as follows:

Best

 Harcourt Horizons: U.S. History  • Harcourt ©2003
  • Clearly superior coverage of the causes of the American Revolution
  • Excels in discussing American constitutional history and issues
  • Conforms to the TEKS on free enterprise as well as Macmillan and better than Scott
  • Most positive treatment of multicultural topics

Better

 The United States  • Scott ©2003

Fair

 Our Nation  • Macmillan ©2003

Our reviewer served on the Texas State Board of Education-appointed Social Studies Review Committee during the 1996 Social Studies TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) writing process.  His brief comparison charts show how these books' coverage of subject matter content differs on key topics.  We can e-mail you those analyses, contrasting these texts' treatment of the American Revo­lu­tion, consti­tutional history, principles and benefits of free enterprise, multiculturalism, religion, and charac­ter trait develop­ment.  This info supple­ments Texas' State Textbook Review Panel, which check­ed conformity to the TEKS; and balances publishers' sales pitches, which stress teach­ing aids.

No public school publisher funded our reviews in any way.  We have no financial stake in any textbook company.  Unlike publish­er sales reps, we have no monetary interest in any textbook adoption outcome.  Our support comes from concerned individ­uals and a few small founda­tions, which to our knowledge have no ties to the public school textbook industry.  We are the Texas group noted by the Wall Street Journal and ABC's Good Morning America for finding hundreds of high school U.S. History textbook factual errors in 1991-92; and by ABC's 20/20 in 1999 for finding hundreds of high school World History textbook factual errors.