Due to a request of Laurie Cardoza-Moore (pictured above) to Franklin High School Principal Willie Dickerson and Superintendant Dr. Mike Looney, the instructional textbook “The Cultural Landscape, An Introduction to Human Geography, 10th Edition, AP Edition,” was reviewed for continued use in the Williamson County School (WCS) system. The book is used in the AP Human Geography class. On April 24th, a written request pursuant to Board Policy 4.403, Reconsideration of Instructional Material and Textbooks was received and the process began.
Within 15 days an Ad Hoc Committee was appointed to review the textbook and the request. The 500 page book was read by five school representatives and a hearing to listen to Cardoza-Moore’s concerns was held on June 17th. Cardoza-Moore was allowed to fully present her case and opinions on the textbook and each point was considered, reviewed and decided upon by the Ad Hoc Committee. In the end there were some points in the book that raised concern and even the publisher and author will be revising future editions for specific word choices in one paragraph.
Overall, the committee chose to continue using the book. They even outlined a number of concerns with the text during deliberation and sited those examples in their lengthy review. The conclusion read “the textbook does have areas of concern which have been detailed above. However, on balance, its strengths and value outweigh those areas of concern. Therefore, the Committee finds that the text should not be removed from the WCS for the 2013-2014 school year.”
The committee also requested that the publisher make electronic revisions of the text available to students next year, and made teachers aware of the removal of the paragraph on page 260 from future versions. They also discussed that the book is an overview text and not a detailed discussion on the topics within and that additional study outside the confines of an AP Human Geography course would be needed to properly discuss many of the topics.
The committee also defined the role of the WCS teacher in their decision. “Based on the issues described above, it is incumbent on each AP Human Geography teacher to help students understand that any religious or cultural references in this textbook may not fully reflect the mores, beliefs or thoughts of all individuals within a culture, political body or religion. At the same time, it is also the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that students are presented with accurate facts.”
This is the only Tennessee state approved textbook for the AP Human Geography Course and has helped many WCS student with the AP Human Geography Exam test. Of 493 students who took the exam, 81 percent scored a 3 or more compared to the 52 percent national average. The committee did a fantastic job when presented with this delicate task and their time and effort should be respected and appreciated.
