I can remember, years ago, working my way through math problems, and the only errors were due to the fact that Math(s) and I didn’t quite get along. I liked Trig, however. It made perfect sense. “There’s a tree. How tall is it? IT’S NOT DIFFICULT.”
I feel badly for the children who actually excel at math, and are the ones finding these text-book errors. I don’t imagine it would be rewarding to find mistakes in books you were supposed to be studying. It might make one’s efforts feel futile.
AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 16 (UPI) — Reviewers have found 109,263 errors in sample copies of math textbooks to be used next fall in Texas.
One second-grade math book, for example, has 4 plus 7 equaling 10, the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday.
Many of the errors, spread out over 164 textbooks and online materials, are blamed on faulty translation from English to Spanish. Some of the student editions also included answers to end-of-chapter quizzes, which were counted as errors.
The math books are expected to be error-free by the time classes begin. For every error that is not caught, the State Board of Education fines publishers $5,000, the newspaper said.
The Boston-based publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Co. is responsible for 79 percent of the errors found in both student and teacher materials.
“The last time we had any errors that were identified after they hit the classrooms was in 2005. We found one,” said Anita Givens, senior director of educational technology at the Texas Education Agency.
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