books and money

Schools need books. Textbooks, of course. They are big money for the companies who make them, and a big expenditure for school districts. In our district - as in most - content areas rotate through and adoption cycle for textbooks. The adoption year this year was for Language Arts. The last time Language Arts was supposed to adopt new materials, we got passed over. Financial issues, I believe. This year, Gadsden district got each high school to send representatives from their English departments to a series of meetings, to train the participants (?) on what to look for in a textbook, how to evaluate a textbook, and I dunno what else, because I was not one of the representatives. It seemed a lot of to-do when the usual process was to let the textbook reps bring samples by the school, and provide lunch as payment for taking our time so they could explain what was so great about their textbooks.

Ok, so they put us through all this rigamarole. Finally let us see the samples and vote on the textbook we want... or at least "recommend" the book we think is the best. The books are brought in at the worst possible time, at the end of the fall semester when teachers are worried about finals and grading and turning in grades before they leave for Christmas break. Still there are a few dedicated souls who look through the samples, and make their opinions known.

And then we wait. Are we waiting for the district to say which books they will buy for us? No. Are we waiting for them to arrive? Well, in a way... We are waiting to hear if the district will actually buy ANY books. Nice, huh. Go through all this process... process that THEY created, and for nothing. Wow, that is going to encourage us all to be so incredibly enthusiatic to participate next time, don't you think?

I hear this person say, well, they HAVE to buy us books, its law, we have to have new books every so many years. (really?) Another person says, oh yes, not only new texts, but choose a couple of novel titles that will come in the package deal for each teacher. (that would be nice). Still another person says, there will be NO new books, there is just no money for them. It is difficult to know in which direction to lean. I mean, I don't like being a pessimist, but honestly, I think our district put our department (and continues to do so) through a fruitless exercise. Another fruitless exercise. What is the point of it? A little rant ammo, I guess.