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Va. to Tighten Textbook Review Process

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Virginia's education department will tighten the way it reviews texbooks before they're allowed in schools.

The change comes after historians uncovered a slew of errors in state-approved history books.

Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction, Patricia Wright, plans to propose that publishers be required to prove their books have been reviewed by "competent authorities who vouch for their accuracy."

The state directed a panel of five history experts to review two social studies texts by Five Ponds Press after one of the books falsely claimed that a large number of black people fought on behalf of the Confederacy.

The historians' review of "Our Virginia" and "Our America: To 1865" discovered even more mistakes, including the wrong number of states in the Confederacy and the wrong year for the start of World War I.

Wright plans to alert school divisions to ensure the errors aren't introduced into instruction.

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