How much do textbook costs contribute to the problems with ps?

[Chris in VA]

I don't know much about this--but I've heard that textbooks cost way, way too much, and that public schools waste a great deal of money on them. Part of the problem I have with public schools is that they don't seem like they handle money very efficiently. Do textbook costs have a great impact? (Am I even phrasing this in a coherent way? LOL)

[kokotg]

Well...DH is a high school math teacher, and his freshmen don't even have textbooks this year, which is a source of constant frustration to him, his students, and their parents.

 

Oh--I heard about this a few weeks ago. I have no idea if it will go anywhere, and I have no opinion on it as of yet (although the fact that DH reports that pretty much every itouch he sees at school has a cracked screen gives me pause), but...well, it's relevant, anyway. Georgia is considering an online textbook deal with Apple:

 

http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2011/02/01/tommie-williams-state-considering-ipads-for-students/

Edited February 26, 2011 by kokotg

[kokotg]

DH clarifies: "well, we spend money on textbooks; we just can't use them." It has something to do with the new math curriculum. He's explained the whole thing to me several times, and I still can't quite grasp it. So, yeah, I guess there's an example of inefficiency at work!

[m0mmaBuck]

I don't know what they cost but I do know that we paid a $200 textbook fee each year AND DSS was not allowed to remove any books from the school. It made it really difficult when he was unable to get assignments finished during school hours.

[mcconnellboys]

I know that many of the high schools here don't have texts for some classes or the texts must stay in the classroom because kids from all periods have to share them. For instance, when a friend's daughter took French, she couldn't bring her book home to study at night..... I'm not sure how that really works....

[Dobela]

Public school textbooks are outrageous. Part of it is a problem with supply and demand - the schools can only order state approved textbooks from state approved companies. The very few companies then have a captive audience with very little competition. They can pretty much charge whatever they want. I was wanting to use some public school materials that I had liked when I was teaching public school in my homeschool a few years ago. When I contacted the companies for catalogs and pricing I was astounded to see that some current teacher editions were sometimes $600 each - and often each subject required more than 1 TE. Some elementary reading programs had upwards of 6 TE per year - and each one was $50 at the cheapest. For reading alone the student text set was $150 per child, and then consummables were not included, charts, and all kinds of 'extras' that were 'required'. I know that when school are buying textbooks that the companies will often give 'bundle discounts' but when 1 class costs thousands of dollars for one subject, the few hundred in discounts doesn't help much.

[regentrude]

You can look at your local ps school's budgets because they are public information. You'll see that the biggest monetary issue are salaries, followed by building maintenance. Textbooks are a drop in the bucket.

[Julie in Austin]

PS generally spends +/-80% of their budgets on teacher salaries. So while text costs can be outrageous, they are not the biggest piece of the puzzle.

 

I have high hopes that over the next decade, schools move to ereaders and free/cheap texts. But I may be dreaming . . .

[Joanne]

Public school textbooks are outrageous. Part of it is a problem with supply and demand - the schools can only order state approved textbooks from state approved companies. .

 

And they update the textbooks frequently which diminishes the accessibility of complementary material.

[KidsHappen]

Many of my children's classrooms only have one set of textbooks for the classroom. All classes use the same books in class. Other classrooms have enough books for all the children but the children are not allowed to bring them home. The school does have on-line textbooks but they are so cumbersome to use that it is enough to make me want to hurl my computer across the room when I try to use them. So I have bought the textbooks that they use each year to keep at home so they have them available for home work.

 

Another problem is that the school buys workbooks for each textbook. Every child, every year gets one of these. These cost a lot of money and are a re-occuring expense. However, not all of these workbook are used. Some are not used at all and others are only partly used. My kids bring them home at the end of the year each year and some only have the child's name, grade and classroom on the front of the workbook but not a single page done whereas others have half done. At the very least they could not issue the workbooks unless they are actually going to use them. Language arts does not have an integrated program so the kids have seperate workbooks for grammar, spelling, vocabulary, reading, etc.

 

So our school system paid for the textbooks (which the children can't use), the workbooks (which they don't use) and the on-line textbooks (which are very difficult to use). That is a whole lot of money on useless curriculum. Then it seems that the teachers frequently don't even teach the material. They just assign whatever is required out of the text/work books. Then the children come home and don't know how to do the work and it is very difficult for the parents to even help them out because we don't have the material to refer to. It is not just basic facts that they are required to learn either. Frequently they have to answer questions with exactly the word for word phrasing from the textbooks (which they don't have) and the vocabulary is different than is standard.

 

So yes, I would say that text/work books can be a problem both in terms of money and quality of teaching.

[Holly IN]

I don't know much about this--but I've heard that textbooks cost way, way too much, and that public schools waste a great deal of money on them. Part of the problem I have with public schools is that they don't seem like they handle money very efficiently. Do textbook costs have a great impact? (Am I even phrasing this in a coherent way? LOL)

 

I know the costs of my nephew and neices textbooks in my school district as we live in the same district. My nephew is a senior and his books and tuition costs around $1000. My nieces books and tuition was about $600. They also have a bus fee as well. Their books are not new but old. About 6 yrs old. and they have to return thier books so no costs recoup on my brother's part.

[justamouse]

I think they contribute to a lot of the problems, but I don't know the answer to offer in place of rejecting them. Teachers I guess would have to write their own and I don't know if that's feasible, either until other changes were made.

[regentrude]

Another problem is that the school buys workbooks for each textbook. Every child, every year gets one of these. These cost a lot of money and are a re-occuring expense.

 

 

How on earth did we ever manage to learn something ins school without workbooks? I know: we had notebooks, the teacher was writing stuff on the board and we took notes. We copied the problems from the books and worked them out in our notebooks, too. No consumables at all. No lose sheets with copies - just bound notebooks.

Hm... why is that not possible anymore?