Reviewers looking over math textbooks to be used in Texas found a few errors in them… like, 109,263.
You didn’t not read that incorrectly. They found over one hundred thousand mistakes.
Turns out that there is a fine per mistake, to the tune of $5k. So technically the textbook publisher (Houghton Mifflin) owes $500 million in fines… unless you go by the math in their books, which would give that figure as $430 million.
HAHAHAHAHA! I laugh at Houghton Mifflin’s expense, yes. Still, good thing the books won’t get sent out to students just yet. HM still has time to find and correct the mistakes; they only pay for the ones that are left when classes begin. So Texas isn’t doomed just yet.
Anyway, since Texas has a creationist governor and a creationist as the head of their State Board of Education, I would assume math mistakes wouldn’t concern them any more than science mistakes do. They want to teach mistakes, and that’s a mistake in itself. I wonder if anyone would fine those guys for each error they make…?
Tip o’ the propeller beanie to Greg Laden.
