Secular Student Alliance board member Matthew LaClair is the author of an Op-Ed piece in today's edition of the LA Times.  In it, he talks about the recent controversy where a nationally used American Government textbook was found to contain several mistakes and conservative bias.  Matthew, with the help of the Center for Inquiry, alerted the publishers of the book (along with the media) about these problems.  The full report can be found on the Center's website.

Matthew urges students to not remain silent when these misstatements occur.  He writes:

What is most distressing is not that some public school teachers preach their religion, or that some authors put politics ahead of education. It is that it is so rare for anyone to call them on it. This text is widely used. Yet to my knowledge, no one has challenged these incorrect and misleading statements.

One of the authors of the textbook also responded to the criticisms in the LA Times.

"As a high school teacher, I'm always proud to see a student speak up in the face of any type of injustice.  I'm even prouder that a student like Matthew cares enough about his education to request that he get a proper one -- with the use of a fair, balanced, and factual textbook," said Hemant Mehta, chair of the Secular Student Alliance.