Students must have textbooks

A Spectrum, by James Milner

What happened to school textbooks? Our schools have no textbooks to send home with the students and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Where were they in the budgets submitted to the board of education?

Most of the teachers are forced to steal copyrighted pages illegally from the protected textbook publishers so the kids can figure out what they are supposed to do. It is not unusual for publishers to file copyright infringement suits in the courts against the board of education in order to have them pay for what they are stealing from the publishers and the authors who have a right to be paid.

Without textbooks for kids to take home, there is no school. Let's quit pretending we are running schools and get on the ball and put the textbooks back in the budget. If the school board does not want to pay for the needed books they should be available for the parents to purchase for their kids.

If that happens you can be sure there would be a new board in the next election. What should be included in the budget? If it's the administrators or the teachers let's make them justify not providing the learning materials our kids need.

Maybe with a few less $96,000 administrators we could buy a whole lot of teaching materials. We have fund raisers for everything else, so let's have fund raising for teaching supplies and books -- I would approve it.

Every board member should visit the classrooms and ask to see the teaching materials provided by the board of education -- and don't let the teachers show you a few old worn-out books in stock that they never let go home. The English textbook was published in 1989 and they have very few and they are a mess. How can we demand quality teaching of the teachers and quality learning on the part of students if they have garbage supplies to work with and no textbooks to send home with our kids?

Did you know that most teachers are forced to pay for many teaching aids they purchase with their own money? I was told today that we don't have a study hall or a place for kids who have a need for a study period to go because the teachers union won't let volunteers look after the study hall without a teaching certificate. There are plenty of people out there who would come in and run a study hall and help

sessions.

Do you as a board member really know that the study halls have been eliminated because the board won't pay to staff them? Shame, shame, shame.

James Milner