A modest proposal to counter the high costs of public school textbooks..

[Fumesucker]

Sell advertising in the textbooks to corporations that want to pitch to our kids and grandkids..

Everything else has advertising all over it, why not textbooks?

Just think of the possibilities for a social science class, pointing out the indoctrination in the textbooks.

Today's lesson brought to you by Coke and Nike..

[Phentex]

1. Get rid of textbooks

give them devices like kindle or ipads to hold everything. Textbooks weigh a ton, need to be updated, and cost a lot to ship.

Down with textbooks! :)

[Fumesucker]

2. Umm.. have you seen what kids do to technological devices?

I've seen a number of ipods, digital cameras, netbooks and such destroyed around here by my grandkids..

The little hellions could break a crowbar in a sandbox and lose one of the pieces, I love them dearly but I just this morning had to use a pair of pliers to remove an improperly inserted battery in a digital camera and I have no idea where the memory card might be for that camera.

We have an eMac here for the kids, it is a Mac built for the educational market and it is built like an Abrams tank, even the power button is on the very back and difficult to find even if you know where it is.

And anyway, the same idea applies to the kindles, iPads or whatever.

Edited for speling.

[walldude]

11. That's a generalization... My oldest son takes good care of his electronics

as do his brothers. Plus if you could see this kids backpack.... He has all honors classes and his backpack must way 50-60 lbs. It would be much easier and cheaper if everything was in electronic form.

[Fumesucker]

12. It's enough of a generalization to be true in the aggregate..

High tech devices and kids don't mix as a general rule, the portable devices as yet are not tough enough to stand up to day in day out use by children.

I personally can't wait until Neal Stephenson's Young Lady's Illustrated Primer or propaedeutic enchiridion is a fact, but it's not here yet..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age

[WinkyDink]

6. And who will continue to update these devices? The new $75K/yr IT guy?

[Posteritatis]

10. And lose half of them in the first year to damage or theft

And that's before getting into the implications of renting textbooks from one company or another.

Oh, and ebooks don't need to be updated? That's news to me.

[Turbineguy]

3. Government Printing?

[JDPriestly]

4. We used to re-use our textbooks.

Our schools did not buy new ones every year. Our parents did not have to pay much for them -- just a small deposit. Some of our books were really old. We still learned from them. How often do schools buy new books? Why not recycle the books by using them over and over and charging parents for them only when the children abuse them.

I say no to the advertising idea because children see too many ads already. The difference between a textbook and magazines or TV should be obvious. The textbook is not a sales gimmick. Advertisers should support schools without expecting something back from the schools. Why does our whole society have to be one big advertisement?

[Fumesucker]

5. They still do that I believe..

I know my grandkid's textbooks are by no means all brand new.

But the cost of textbooks is ridiculously high and kids are hard on books, like they are on everything else.

BTW, my OP is satirical in nature, prompted by the California idea to sell advertising on license plates..

[WinkyDink]

7. OF COURSE textbooks are collected and used year after year! It's not like "Macbeth" or Alg II has

changed!

[Kalyke]

8. So what happens when the parents of said children are

boycotting one of these items?

I'm boycotting Nike because of Tiger "boys look up to me while I emotionally hurt my wife and treat women as objects and that's OK" Woods. I'm boycotting BP and Walmart, for obvious reasons, too.

I certainly don't want my children exposed to their advertising in a school book. I can turn off the TV or monitor their FB pages, but their schools books last a few years.

[Fumesucker]

9. "A Modest Proposal" is the title of what may be the most famous satire in English..

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html