ABSTRACT
This chapter describes state-level textbook selection and adoption as a systemic attempt to arrive at textbook decisions through a process that reflects and balances the values of neutral competence, executive leadership, and representativeness. The inclusion in this process of textbook publishers and protesters, whose intent is to influence these decisions directly, makes this balancing act even more important for educators to understand. Accepting influence as a major factor in the Texas textbook operation creates the need to borrow from allocative theory and use its assumption that education policymaking is a competitive process, the essence of which resides in the interplay of influence. The emphasis sought in this chapter however, the extent to which it can be empirically illustrated that those who take part in the process of acquiring Texas textbooks recognize influence. The chapter looks at the relationships between those who made decisions within this system and the textbook publishers and protesters who wished to influence those decisions.
