Textbook Commission removes race and gender from science advisory panel applications

Members of the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission unanimously voted Wednesday morning to remove race/ethnicity and gender from the applications candidates applying to serve on an advisory panel will submit.Commissioners will name that advisory panel next year to provide guidance to the board when reviewing science textbooks and instructional materials for public schools.  The Textbook Commission will eventually recommend a list of textbooks to the State Board of Education for approval.The commission spent Wednesday morning going over the various questions that will be a part of panelist applications and commission member Deborah Chancellor asked why race and ethnicity are included.“May I suggest we take off race/ethnicity. Do we need to know that,” asked Chancellor.Commission member Mike Bell agreed with Chancellor’s request to remove race/ethnicity and he questioned whether an applicant’s gender should be on the application as well. Bell told fellow board members he doesn’t feel either are required by state legislation that governs the commission.“The legislature when they passed this statute, didn’t ask us to ask that question. Didn’t put that down as one of the qualifications for it,” said Bell. “If the whole panelist was females and we thought that was best, then why do we need to know that?”Textbook Commission members are appointed by Governor Bill Lee along with the Speakers of the Tennessee House and Senate. Currently all voting members of the commission are white.The vote contrasts with steps the state has made in recent years to increase the focus on the diversity of educators themselves.  In 2021 the State Board of Education passed a new policy to require school districts to set goals and strategies to increase teacher diversity.

Advisor Qualifications

Members of the Textbook Commission also unanimously voted to add additional questions that ask advisory panelist applicants to provide information about their qualifications and their credentials.Member Laurie Cardoza-Moore brought up that change as she’s concerned advisory panel candidates who’ve served on an educational committee might get preference over candidates with experience teaching in a classroom.“Just because they’ve sat on a committee doesn’t make them more qualified than someone who has actually been in the class teaching, and has had some tremendous success,” said Cardoza-Moore.