In early 2005 publishers submitted books for kindergarten through eighth grade to the state of California. Pearson (including Scott Foresman and Prentice Hall), McGraw-Hill (Glencoe), Harcourt (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) and Houghton Mifflin (McDougal Littell) -- the "big four" textbook publishing companies -- were joined by hopeful new entries from Oxford University Press and Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI).

By investing heavily in California between 1987 and 1989, Houghton Mifflin scored a sales victory and until recently held a lucrative geographic franchise. Unlike in 1990, publishers other than Houghton Mifflin were not about to miss the jamboree. To introduce new volumes, they all spent big money and hired prominent California historians and curriculum specialists as "authors."

The picture and activity book is now an almost K-8 universal. What California and the nation got from Houghton Mifflin 15 years ago was the DK, or Dorling Kindersley, format. DK was the super-hot graphic then sweeping juvenile non-fiction, great to look at but in hindsight a major contributor to dumbing down textbooks and finishing off narrative. Houghton Mifflin led the field in content too. In the early 1990s, multiculturalists captured social studies at Houghton Mifflin. Editors were put in the hands of revisionist historians, Islamist activists, and diversity counters. From the names listed as consultants and authors in its 2007 © volumes, Houghton Mifflin editors appear doggedly committed to these principles.

Its eighth-grade history, Creating America, produced by Houghton Mifflin's McDougal Littell imprint, a book not without merits as it has more depth and text than other eighth-grade U.S. histories that were approved. Creating America identifies ten representative American heroes:

Abigail Adams
Crispus Attucks
Andrew Jackson
Queen Liluokalanai
Abraham Lincoln
Juan Sequin
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
George Washington
Ida B. Wells
Zitkala-Sa

In fact this list is highly unrepresentative of American history. This vaguely Soviet-style "history" cobbled together from "representative" national heroes conforms to multicultural ideology. In today's eighth grade U.S. histories, compared to John Garraty's excellent The Story of America, introduced in California in 1991 and now out of print, literary quality and episodic description take a plunge. California has adopted the dismal eighth-grade textbook, American Nation, the blockbuster from Prentice Hall that has dominated the country for years. This specific adoption may be evidence of California's final failure to honor the state's curriculum framework and standards.

In April 2005, a Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI) world history textbook being piloted in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the California market was pulled after parental complaints of the book's gross Islamic bias. This TCI book is poorly produced and dreadfully written. It is unimaginable that the state of California can defend the quality of the seventh-grade book, let alone adopt it, but locally based TCI gives plenty of teacher support and stresses instructional activities, more popular than reading assignments among teachers.

But there is good news too. Holt Rinehart and Winston, an imprint of Harcourt, owned by Reed Elsevier, has developed new history textbooks a cut above the competition. While adhering to big print, "picture book" format, what Holt offers with its sixth- and seventh-grade world histories puts Houghton Mifflin and other publishers to shame. Holt editors seem to be listening to accumulating complaints about content and legibility. Most remarkably, the all-important teacher's edition is sharp and clear. Teachers using the Holt textbook have solid backup. This contrasts to its competitors' something-for-everybody, attention-deficit-disorder approaches.

In sixth- and seventh-grade world history, Holt's extensive coverage of antiquity, especially its political history, is welcome. Great figures and events in modern history, dominated by European discovery, expansion of science, and imperialism, stand out. Biographical examples are well chosen. The sweep of history is global. The complicated civilizations of ancient India and China are explained with finesse. The text is always direct, readable, and lucid. Unlike other publishers that omitted subjects like jihad and sharia at the bidding of Islamic activists, Holt tried to deal with Islam fully. No surprise, the Holt volume was strongly criticized by the Council on Islamic Education.

True, Holt's new world histories are loose on African and Native American societies. Like all world history textbooks, they strive (unsuccessfully) to make all civilizations equally impressive. Queen Shanakhdakheto and "Kushite society" make puzzling entrances. But publishers including Holt must sell to multicultural book buyers active throughout the state. Holt also stands to gain from a last-minute deal to distribute the Oxford University Press narrative series. The Oxford books in world history are of mixed quality. Some a better written than others, but they are all text-centered and are pitched higher than standard DK-style picture and activity books with quick-read formats. The Oxford volumes provide narrative options for teachers who want to teach stories and episodic history.

California adopted virtually every book that came to the table, including some shockingly dumbed down and biased volumes. Three cowardly publishers, facing conflicting definitions of jihad and intense pressure from Islamists to doctor its meaning, simply removed the concept from seventh-grade world history textbooks. This is an omission with potentially grave consequences. To the surprise of all, Hindu nationalists, unhappy with Islamic textbook pressure and trying to whitewash Indian history, produced elaborate critiques of the textbooks and standard scholarship. When they did not get their way, they sued the California board of education and mounted a national publicity campaign, causing publishers added consternation. On all sides, by the end of the adoption, it seemed that California's long and intricate adoption process did nothing to advance textbook quality and worse, provided an unwelcome forum for aggressive religious lobbies.