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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope.

欢迎回来《闲话美国》。

Hi, James.

Hi, Lulu, hi everyone.

Every time I'll start the episode by asking you what we're gonna talk about today, but instead of doing that, I would like to propose a specific topic.

I see. Go ahead.

Have you been following the latest heated discussion about textbooks? The problem with Chinese text books on social media.

Ah, I have seen posts about it, but I haven't really been following that news.

So a lot of people are getting really angry about the problems with these text books. I thought it would be quite interesting to talk about text books that you guys use in United States.

That's a very good topic. Let's do it.

First things first, in China, our textbooks, especially for K12, so for primary education and secondary education, they are generally approved by the Ministry of Education, 是由教育部这边要审核和认可的。

And then how the curriculum as well, 整个课程计划, what about in the States? I'm guessing, from based on what we were talking about before in other episodes, each State will have their own rules.

That is a very good guess and you are correct, in America, it’s a lot more complicated than here in China.

Don't you have Department of Education? Don't they have a say like more of a generalized control over this?

OK, so we do have a Department of Education at the Federal level, but in America, the Department of Education does not set curriculum and does not choose or write the text books that the schools use. The Department of Education sets the education policy, such as who can go to school like don't discriminate against your students, things like this; and making sure that the schools are credited, and are safe and suitable for students. But the material, the curriculum is all done at the local State level.

I see, so Department of Education is very much about macro policy, 更多是宏观的一些政策, very vague, very general.

That's right.

And then what does State do?

The State Departments of Education, they are the ones who really control what is taught in the classroom. So the State Education Departments, they're the ones that set such curriculum and choose the standards which the teachers need to be teaching in the classroom. Additionally, they also approve the text books that are to be used in school.

Okay, you know in China, we would say at this grade you should be, for example, you should recognize, let's say 3,000 Chinese characters at this age or at this grade, you should be able to do geometry, so that sort of thing is set by the States.

Yeah, governments uhhh

Those are what we'd call the standards.

I see.

I have a question though, because each State will have this much power over how kids are taught, what kind of contents are taught in school, then the difference between states can be significant, right, technically some states can set a very low standard for the students for the kids?

Now there are some nationwide standards that the States can choose to use. Some people may be familiar with the term Common Core.

What is Common Core?

This is a standard for English Language Arts and Math that has been adopted in many States across the country as part of their school standards; and Common Core states things like by this Grade students will be able to analyze text and write a descriptive essay, by this Grade, they can know this kind of math formula and things like that it's a standard, but States can choose their own.

Common Core听起来有点像我们统一的教学大纲。But you also said they're about English Language Arts and Math.

Yes.

What about Science? What about like History? What about Foreign Languages?

Well, Common Core is just the most popular standard we use, but it's not the only one. There's a standard called arrow which is about more social studies in History. There is standards for Science, multiple different ones for Science, there’s standards for language learning, there’s standards for Foreign Language Learning. It's a very long and complicated list, and what our audience may be like, that sounds extremely confusing.

Yeah.

So Americans also think so.

It does sound confusing, and I also would like to ask a question. Since textbooks and curriculum are so different from one State to another, do parents actually move between States to guarantee their kids a better education?

Yes. So that's actually one thing that parents look at when they're applying for jobs is they want to see what the school district is like, they want to see the standards of school use, and parents will absolutely factor that into where they're going to work, as they want their kids, just like in China, they want their kids to get the best possible education that they can provide. And that means moving to where the schools are good.

Ok, let's drag it back a bit because we're talking about general set of education models. What about text books themselves? I'm assuming schools, even within a State, schools are not using the same textbooks. Correct?

Yes and no, depends from State to State like most things.

So the Department of Education in each State, they’re the ones to approve text books. Now some States require these teachers to use a certain textbook like you must use this textbook. Other States provide a list. It's like these are the approved textbooks. You can choose from this list, but there is an approval process that the States have. And the book must meet that approval process.

Who develops or who writes these textbooks? Is it the State?

For example, do you have like a board, educational board to write and develop these textbooks?

Do you know companies like Pearson Longman, McGraw Hill? These big publishing companies, that's who writes the books.

So private companies, they write it. yeah, then they get approval from the State Department of Education. And then these textbooks can be used by individual schools. That's correct. But then the content can be very different from one textbook to another. Right?

Yeah, this is most obvious in like biology and history textbook, because since different States do have different standards, history is a big one because most States include local history. So each State has different local history; and biology it just depends on what they focus more on biology.

The local history touch, I actually quite like that, so to learn about your local community or local history, I think that's a quite nice touch. If I remember correctly, when we were talking about education before, you did mention text books are very expensive. Yeah, so if they're all developed and written by a published by these private companies, they're so expensive, there are so many different subjects as well, how can every student afford it in like especially public education?

They don't have to afford it, because in public school, students borrow the books from the school.

What?

They don't buy them. Yeah the books are borrowed.

But realistically speaking, you get a bunch of kids using text books. Have you seen some of the text books used by kids in China?

And then I remember being a kid and we used to doodle, 就我们会在课本上画的，加个胡子，加个什么的。然后有些孩子的卫生习惯也不太好, maybe they wipe whatever dirty things they have on the hands on the book.

Yeah, I know what kids will do.

First of all, the American textbooks are a much higher quality in terms of material, like glossy paper, full color, hard back, and super expensive like $150 per book. So things that they do is if you damage the book, yes, the student will need to replace the book. Most parents will get pretty upset and they have to buy a $150 book.

$150 for one book.

That's just one book. You got multiple subjects.

I can totally see if you damaged book, your parents will be super upset.

Yeah.

Okay, I think we're gonna wrap up here for the basic episode. We got a little bit into the textbook and how textbooks are made and how they get approved. What's been taught in school.

And in the advanced episode, we're gonna go on to talk about some of the controversial issues, equally controversial issues about text books, what can be in it, what cannot be in it in the United States.

That sounds great.

On that note. We're gonna say goodbye to you now. And if you have any comments about textbooks, leave it in the comment section, we'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.

Bye.