A former member of Alabama's State Textbook Committee has called for changes to the process, citing a need for greater transparency and openness to the public.
1819 News reported on Wednesday that Emily Eddings-Sandley, an employee of the controversial, pro-LGBTQ+ charter school Magic City Acceptance Academy (MCAA), was appointed to the official state textbook committee last month.
Eddings-Sandley was not approved by the State BOE in the June 11 resolution appointing its 14 members to the committee, and the Alabama Senate likewise did not approve her nomination during the 2026 legislative session. However, Mackey sent her a letter informing her that she had been appointed to the State Textbook Committee.
Mackey is currently on vacation and therefore unavailable to clarify how the appointment came to be, according to a spokesperson for the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE).
The textbook committee's job is to evaluate and recommend textbooks for Alabama's public K-12 schools. Its meetings are closed to the public and do not fall under the state's transparency law, the Open Meetings Act (OMA).
In fact, it's a Class C misdemeanor for any member of the committee or for any other person to disclose the committee's textbook ratings and gradings to anyone except the State BOE, the State Superintendent of Education, or both, until after the contracts are made.
Once the committee finishes its evaluations, it sends recommendations to the State BOE. After that, the board has the final say at meetings open to the public. Since the State BOE technically conducts the deliberative process and the Textbook Committee only makes recommendations, the law does not appear to subject them to OMA.
Allen Mendenhall, an author and lawyer with a Ph.D. in English from Auburn University, was appointed by Gov. Kay Ivey to the Social Studies division of the 2025 State Textbook Committee. According to Mendenhall, he was abruptly removed from the committee by Ivey in July 2025 for reasons unknown to him and open only to speculation.
Mendenhall told 1819 News that he was selected to review economics textbooks, a process he said lacked objectivity and competition. He said the review process was also pre-keyed on a computer, allowing him to answer only specific, pre-made questions.
"The process is flawed," Mendenhall said. "And it's just sort of a check-the-box kind of thing. But there's no room for real subjectivity. So, for example, I remember going through a textbook that had this gigantic profile of Elizabeth Warren in it. And I thought, why, why is this profile here? Like, I would love to be able to point this out. But instead, I'm just going through the standards and just saying, "Does this textbook talk about, you know, microeconomics versus macroeconomics?"
"Yes, it does, you know. But there's nothing to say like, 'well, I really wish they didn't have this profile of Elizabeth Warren in the textbook. You know, so you get all kinds of ideological stuff into the textbooks that way because the way the process works, there's no way to screen out ideology. It's just, it's just, check the box sort of thing."
Mendenhall also stated that the ingrained secrecy and confidentiality answer more questions than they answer, stating he was not informed how the textbooks he reviewed were presented to him in the first place. He also expressed concern that there were no safeguards to prevent bias or conflicts of interest.
"The statute that makes it a misdemeanor for people to reveal the ratings and the gradings of the textbook committee; that lends itself to a lack of transparency, limited oversight and information asymmetry," Mendenhall said. "I think that if you were to look at this really closely, you could probably find public choice reasons for why this statute exists. Does it ensure that certain textbooks have a monopoly? Does it ensure that other types of textbooks don't get into the curriculum because they may be more conservative in orientation? Is there a reason why certain publishers are getting an advantage? Why is it that certain textbooks are getting into this process, whereas other textbooks are not?
"You know, it makes you wonder if committee members have undisclosed relationships with these publishers. Or even who the people are who would administer and oversee these committees. It just raises more questions than it answers. Why all the secrecy? Why not just secrecy, but why criminalize it?"
He concluded, "You know, this process seems to be designed to ensure that the major textbook companies retain their kind of monopolistic control over the curriculum and over what students are getting assigned. I would like to break all that up, get some competition in there, and get some better textbooks."
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