Textbooks: Still Missing 2023
The year is 2023, Covid is in the past, and Idaho education is back to normal! Kids are back to school in person, many school districts throughout the state are asking their voters for ‘supplemental’ school levy bonds, and the majority of school districts are using classroom sets of textbooks, which means we are still out of books. Since we phased out textbooks that went home with students about 30 years ago, this is now the third time I’ve written to policymakers asking them to consider phasing textbooks back into our schools. The difference this time though is that we are adding $410 million to the education budget and how most of this money will be spent is at the discretion of our legislature in 2023. This is a perfect time to consider this issue.
First, let me try to succinctly try to explain the problem. As I first wrote in 2020, right now, the majority of our districts use ‘classroom sets’ of textbooks, meaning that classes have about 35 textbooks in them that don’t go home with students. I first discovered this issue in 2006, and I’d love to say that things have changed but they haven’t. The lack of textbooks that go home dramatically affects classroom engagement in two ways: 1.) How do teachers assign homework to students if they have nothing at home to use for that work? (BTW, if 5 of your 35 students don’t have internet at home, you will punish them every time you make students rely on the internet to complete their work, so that’s not an option.) 2.) When students have to finish their work in your classroom-the only time they have access to the textbook-it slows the pace you can cover material to the slowest student in the classroom. So the engagement double-whammy that lack of textbooks cause is that typically very little homework is assigned and classes are forced to move at a snail’s pace. Imagine how that adds up by the end of just one academic year and think about how much engagement is lost over 13 academic years.
Because we’ve been in this system for so long, and even our educational leaders have lived the system for so long, the issue is invisible and few seem to have a problem with it. Even though I first encountered this so many years ago, my memory of the difference between teaching in NV (where every teacher, student, and parent completely takes for granted resources at the classroom level that 95% of ID students, parents, and teachers don’t even have) runs something like this: When you teach in system that does have books that go home with students, you’re driving down the freeway at 70 mph, and once those books are taken away, you’re going down the same freeway with the same kids stuck at 35 mph. I felt it was soul-destroying, and for a while, this issue kind of shipwrecked my life. It’s like teaching with one hand tied behind your back.
For me, this is old news, but if this is new to you I challenge you to call your local school district and ask, “Do the textbooks you use go home with students?” and you’ll discover the truth of what I say. Personally, I feel that the dramatic effect lack of textbooks has on student engagement to the academic material is more than enough argument to fix this issue, but I’d like to add a ‘how' and another ‘why' for fixing the textbook issue.
How to Add Textbooks Back to the Classroom
Many states dedicate funds that have to go to classroom materials and cannot be spent any other way. This is done at the state level and districts can receive this money by spending it on classroom materials (i.e: books) or if they don’t, the money stays with the state. Here in Idaho, we don’t do it this way: what a district spends on classroom materials comes out of their operating budget, but that’s a problem. First, it means that different districts will spend differently, and more importantly, it means the money is not safe. If your district finds itself cash-starved, and those that run it turn to ‘supplemental’ levies in order to keep the lights on and pay wages to their employees, the % of the budget that goes to classroom materials tends to drop to the bottom of the list. If you don’t dedicate a % of the budget to classroom materials only (and I believe the state should do this over the heads of district leaders), classroom materials will be the first thing sacrificed if the budget experiences a downturn because it’s a lower priority than paying salaries and electric bills. Every time. Remember, we phased books out 30 years ago and they haven’t come back. They won’t until someone at a high leadership level protects a classroom materials fund. Another reason the state should do this is that providing this fund at the state level means that all districts, both the rich and the poor, will have the same amount of money to pay for classroom materials, which is the best way of ensuring equal and adequate education across the state.
So the easiest fix for this issue would be to come up with a certain dollar amount per student that’s dedicated only to classroom materials, and every district and school in the state receives exactly the same ‘classroom materials’ funding, but only if they use it on classroom materials. This action would protect the classroom materials budget from being raided during economic downturns and would fit under the Legislature’s mandate to provide ‘fair and uniform education’ since every student in the state receives the same funding.
The Unseen Affect This Causes
Another thing to consider about bringing textbooks back to classrooms is the unseen, unconscious affect their lack has at the classroom level. If you are a teacher trying to do your job without the resources you need to do that job, it sends a pretty strong message that you’re not really supported. Politicians often mouth their support for education, but the lack of basics at the classroom level tells you that these are only words. It’s demoralizing to work in this kind of system. Worse than this, the message it gives students. As a kid, you’re told by the adults in your life that ‘education matters’ but then you arrive into classrooms that can’t even give you textbooks to take home, where little or no homework is assigned, and things are paced to the slowest students in the room. You realize that although adults say education matters, it sure doesn’t seem to at the practical level. If it did, you as a student would have the resources you need to get a good education and your teachers would have the resources they need to give it to you. As adults tell you you must ‘Go on’ to college, you wonder, ‘What? For more Education Lite, only now I’m supposed to start paying for this?’
If we want a job done well, we must invest in ensuring we have the proper tools to do this job. This is true for our military, who have the best weapons we can produce, because it’s important they are able to do the job well. This is true for corporate America, and for professional sports in our nation, and everything. 50% of our state’s budget goes into education and classroom materials would be a small portion of that, but it would make a big difference at the classroom level and tell both educators and students in our state that we are actually serious about providing a quality education rather than ‘Education Lite’. To me, a job that you can’t do well is not a job worth doing, so if you’re willing to do the job, commit to doing it well. Protecting classroom resources like textbooks would go a long way toward making that happen.
Notes:
Little calls for special session to cut taxes, put $410 million into education
Education 208: Still Missing - Textbooks
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