Appreciate the context! Thanks for the detailed writeup, bonus points for the conspiracy hat.

> If your school imported books in English without performing due diligence to compare the philosophy of both books (Dutch vs English)

I'm pretty sure they did some due diligence - most books were great. Also they were without exception British schoolbooks, not American. I know little about the UK school system but I doubt it's as college preppy as what you describe.

> What was your experience with textbooks growing up? Did you read all of them cover to cover as a part of the curriculum?

Yes. Well, read.. We like did one chapter per week or something like that, with explanation and exercises etc. All the school books were designed in a format intended to be worked through, cover to cover, over the given period (usually 1-3 books in a series per year depending on the subject). I can't recall skipping anything ever. Fwiw this held for the English books too.

There was also often a separate textbook and "workbook" from the same series that tied in together. I believe these workbooks primarily exist to make schools re-buy them every year (kids write in them), super wasteful & scammy. But still, no skipping (except maybe little bits here and there that the teacher thought was silly).