California to Limit Classroom Materials to 200 Pages?!
Talk about making up meddling regulations for the sake of making up meddling regulations: AB 756 would limit any instructional materials used in California classrooms to 200 pages. And it has passed the Assembly and is being considered by the Senate! Here's a San Jose Mercury News editorial:
"Assembly sticks nose into textbooks"
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posted by Mike Laursen @ 10:39 PM
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I know a lot of people are freaking out about this bill but I think there are some real issues that it's trying to address. Having kids lugging around backpacks almost as heavy as they are is bound to cause some health problems. Why not split up a year's history book into paperback chapters? Might as well, because when history changes next year, they'll need to replace some part. ;-) The bill, as usual, tries to go about the change in a simple-minded way which will have unintended negative consequences. As written, even most literature would exceed the 200-page limit. (Oh wait, government schools don't ask kids to read literature, never mind...) And as written, you'd only be able to get about half-way throught the Old Testament!* (Oh wait, that book is already on the banned books list at government schools.)
Come to think of it, I don't think this bill goes far enough. I think it should prohibit the government schools from buying any instructional materials (or paying salaries, or owning land, etc...); problem solved!
AnCow
Opposed to empires, nations, presidents and kings... and school boards.
Lest you get the wrong idea, I regard all religion as false. But, the Bible is an interesting thing to study as mythology and the basis for many people's values. Especially the chapter on "Le' Vicious Kiss"
Welcom, AnCow. (I'm trying to figure out if you're someone I know.)
Yes, I agree they are trying to address real problems with this bill. But they've picked an awkward way of going about it.
Besides the textbook weight issue, some folks have suggested that this bill is a ploy to rein in textbook publishers, who are believed to have too much lobbying clout. I wonder.
I recall that when I was in school that I sometimes didn't do all my homework because I didn't want to lug home 6-7 very heavy textbooks. I've always been smaller than average and I had to walk home from school (and it wasn't all that close). It was very unreasonable to expect me to carry all that to and from school everyday so I think it's actually kind of nice to see them addressing this. But I was reading more on this and it turns out that California already requires that school textbooks have a weight limit now. So, it sounds like they have been addressing this issue. So, I'm not entirely sure why it's necessary to also put a random page limit on books.
I will say that I like the idea of using less trees by putting more educational materials online but that sort of assumes that all California children have equal internet access ... I'm pretty sure that some kids probably don't or have limited access at the very least.
I also think that splitting up a book into several more manageable volumes would actually be more costly and would waste somewhat more paper, wouldn't it?
I'm afraid our politicians sometimes create more problems with their seemingly well-intentioned solutions.
Hi, Stephanie. I know what you're talking about. I've seen little grade schoolers walking along with humongous book bags on their backs. My fading memory of the way things worked when I went to grade school, back in the 1960s, was that our teachers always sent us home with Xeroxed homework sheets and we left our textbooks at school.
Of course, our textbooks were written on stone tablets back in those days so there was no way we *could* have carried them home. :-)
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