Untested Textbooks

The "largest single group of unprotected consumers" in the U.S. consists of millions of students who are now deluged with more than 200,000 poorly tested textbooks, films, teaching machines and other complex learning gadgets. That Nader-like charge comes from P. Kenneth Komoski, head of the nonprofit, Manhattan-based Educational Products Information Exchange Institute. Testifying before a House subcommittee, Komoski estimated that 99% of the nation's teaching materials have never been systematically tried out to see how much students actually learn from them.

According to publishers' data, said Komoski, less than 10% of the current 60 "bestselling" school textbooks were tested before publication. Only three of the 223 most popular instructional TV programs have been checked. Though publishers often claim that their material has been "used with thousands of students throughout the country," Komoski quoted the more realistic appraisal of one senior vice president: "We have about 160 salesmen and consultants who report back what they pick up in the field--that's really our field testing." Few teachers and administrators demand more. While spending about $600 million a year on teaching materials, said Komoski, most schools merely buy untested material "because it's available and you can't run a school without materials."

Adequate testing is slow, too costly for most small publishers, and often fiendishly complex. Still, executives of several big textbook publishers, including McGraw-Hill, agreed with Komoski's criticism. They joined him in favoring a Government-run National Institute of Education--now drawing bipartisan support in Congress--that could expand research. The U.S. spends 4.6% of its health budget and about 10% of its military budget on research and development. In education, says Indiana Congressman John Brademas, an institute backer, the R. and D. costs are now less than one-third of 1%.

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