Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Eat Me

Fox News notes the influence of politics on textbooks

Some textbooks already demonstrate such successes. In California, for example, health food activists convinced California lawmakers to outlaw mention of "foods of low nutritive value" in its schoolbooks.

That means the short story previously called "A Perfect Day for Ice Cream" is now called "A Perfect Day." The reference to an ice-cream shop excursion has been edited out, and math word problems have been revised so that items like lollipops and candy bars are not included to teach kids arithmetic.

Sensing a new business opportunity, educational publishers are rushing to put out edited versions of classics such as The Little Engine That Wouldn't Because it Cared Too Much About Anthropogenic Global Warming, Charlie and the Granola Factory and, for older schoolers, To Nurture a Mockingbird and Pride (a Jane Austen adaptation).

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at July 16, 2002 9:56 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links