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Have you ever been party to textbook adoption time? The textbook companies are buying dinners and drinks for the teachers, "conferences" for the department cha

Have you ever been party to textbook adoption time? The textbook companies are buying dinners and drinks for the teachers, "conferences" for the department chairs and offers of all manner of paid amenities for the school district. Obviously, with a pricing model that can afford sales costs like that and a price tag like $175,000 for district-wide adoption of a single textbook, the industry is ripe for disruption. At the same time, the industry probably has lobbyists poised to protect their model with "think of the children." I know that my wife (who has been through several of these textbook adoption periods) is frustrated beyond belief based on the cost/benefit ratio of these textbooks as opposed to what the district could probably pay its teachers to produce themselves. I can only imagine that if this sort of thing spreads beyond a negligible percentage of schools making their own texts, the textbook makers will probably become more actively involved in stopping it.

wazoox 15y ago
> "think of the children." My children routinely carried 5 kg of books from the age of 8 years old up to 10 kg at times now that's they're 12 and 14. If there's an industry that should die for the benefit of the children it's this one... But for the time being the schools probably have something like 1 computer for 10 pupils, so the infrastructure really isn't there to switch to true online material -- Though a 200 euros tablet could replace easily a huge stack of books for a lot less money. Unfortunately here in France the books must be certified by the ministry of education, making the lobbying power of school books editors much more efficient, because they only need to please a few government officials.
- e40 15y ago
  My child (11) goes to a school in a top tier CA elementary school, and he has never carried a single school book. Homework problems are all photocopies of typed up problem sets. I take that back, the books he carries are the ones he reads for pleasure (the Harry Potter books are really huge, too). Once I get my Kindle Fire, I'm giving him my old Kindle, which should help with that.
hessenwolf 15y ago
Two really awesome advantages: 1. Teachers have a lot more motivation to produce a good textbooks - just like me they are lazy but want to be productive - so it is in their interests to compress as much info into the heads of children with the minimum amount of time and effort. This interest is aligned with parents and children. 2. The reduction in costs is a bonus to the parents of school-going children. That bonus can be utilised in a more productive way.

wazoox 15y ago

> "think of the children." My children routinely carried 5 kg of books from the age of 8 years old up to 10 kg at times now that's they're 12 and 14. If there's an industry that should die for the benefit of the children it's this one... But for the time being the schools probably have something like 1 computer for 10 pupils, so the infrastructure really isn't there to switch to true online material -- Though a 200 euros tablet could replace easily a huge stack of books for a lot less money. Unfortunately here in France the books must be certified by the ministry of education, making the lobbying power of school books editors much more efficient, because they only need to please a few government officials.

e40 15y ago
My child (11) goes to a school in a top tier CA elementary school, and he has never carried a single school book. Homework problems are all photocopies of typed up problem sets. I take that back, the books he carries are the ones he reads for pleasure (the Harry Potter books are really huge, too). Once I get my Kindle Fire, I'm giving him my old Kindle, which should help with that.

hessenwolf 15y ago

Two really awesome advantages: 1. Teachers have a lot more motivation to produce a good textbooks - just like me they are lazy but want to be productive - so it is in their interests to compress as much info into the heads of children with the minimum amount of time and effort. This interest is aligned with parents and children. 2. The reduction in costs is a bonus to the parents of school-going children. That bonus can be utilised in a more productive way.