Why no textbooks in ACPS?

[Anonymous]

My students are elementary and they bring home tons of paper. It seems super wasteful. Is there a reason we don't have textbooks or even a tablet with a PDF text?

[Anonymous]

Because textbooks are racists. So no one gets any.

[Anonymous]

Sdhools buy curruculums. A lot fo the worksheets actually come from workbooks. Depending on who the school is using.

[Anonymous]

Textbooks aren't equitable. Neither is homework. Be grateful you are seeing worksheets. After kinder, I saw maybe one or two the entire time my kid was at George Mason.

[Anonymous]

Wow, PPs. Please join the rest of us in the 21st century. I know you live to bash ACPS, but in this case, your going to have to trash education nationwide, which is moving away from textbooks. You can still see the course content, just contact your kid's teacher.
Meanwhile, be grateful your kid doesn't have to haul a bunch of books back and forth, and that updates to curriculum can be delivered and adopted more rapidly because the school doesn't have to pay for a bunch of trees to be pulped and handed out.

[Anonymous]

I am a secondary teacher in ACPS. I can only speak for myself, but here are the reasons I don’t use the textbook:

When new textbooks were selected a few years ago, the committee was swayed by glossy photos and high-tech features. To save money, they purchased class sets of the books and decided that the kids can use the online version at home. However, there are some problems.

First, the online books do not integrate well with Canvas. It takes like 10 clicks to get to the correct page. Supposedly there is a way to do a direct link, but no one can figure it out. It’s hard enough to get the kids to do any homework, and it’s a lot harder if they can’t find the assignment.

Also, who likes reading online anyway? These kids stare at screens enough. Plus it’s too tempting for them to open a new tab and play games instead.

The books are written at grade level, but now thanks to Covid, many of these kids are way behind in reading. Some of my students are four or five grade levels behind. That makes it really difficult for them to access the text.

Also, the books are way too detailed, going well beyond the required curriculum. While that’s awesome for the gifted kid with a strong interest in the subject, it is difficult for struggling readers.

So what do I do instead? I create my own materials or I get worksheets from other teachers. Or I photocopy the old textbook from 15 years ago that I like better. It’s not ideal, and I don’t like using paper, but I have to make adjustments so that the kids can learn. I suspect your kids’ teachers are doing the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Kids are FIVE grade levels behind in ACPS? Holy crap!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, PPs. Please join the rest of us in the 21st century. I know you live to bash ACPS, but in this case, your going to have to trash education nationwide, which is moving away from textbooks. You can still see the course content, just contact your kid's teacher.
Meanwhile, be grateful your kid doesn't have to haul a bunch of books back and forth, and that updates to curriculum can be delivered and adopted more rapidly because the school doesn't have to pay for a bunch of trees to be pulped and handed out.

My kids don't have textbooks
-LCPS parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, PPs. Please join the rest of us in the 21st century. I know you live to bash ACPS, but in this case, your going to have to trash education nationwide, which is moving away from textbooks. You can still see the course content, just contact your kid's teacher.
Meanwhile, be grateful your kid doesn't have to haul a bunch of books back and forth, and that updates to curriculum can be delivered and adopted more rapidly because the school doesn't have to pay for a bunch of trees to be pulped and handed out.

There is so much privilege in your post it’s nauseating. But it’s a perfect pro ACPS thing to say. Bless your heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a secondary teacher in ACPS. I can only speak for myself, but here are the reasons I don’t use the textbook:

When new textbooks were selected a few years ago, the committee was swayed by glossy photos and high-tech features. To save money, they purchased class sets of the books and decided that the kids can use the online version at home. However, there are some problems.

First, the online books do not integrate well with Canvas. It takes like 10 clicks to get to the correct page. Supposedly there is a way to do a direct link, but no one can figure it out. It’s hard enough to get the kids to do any homework, and it’s a lot harder if they can’t find the assignment.

Also, who likes reading online anyway? These kids stare at screens enough. Plus it’s too tempting for them to open a new tab and play games instead.

The books are written at grade level, but now thanks to Covid, many of these kids are way behind in reading. Some of my students are four or five grade levels behind. That makes it really difficult for them to access the text.

Also, the books are way too detailed, going well beyond the required curriculum. While that’s awesome for the gifted kid with a strong interest in the subject, it is difficult for struggling readers.

So what do I do instead? I create my own materials or I get worksheets from other teachers. Or I photocopy the old textbook from 15 years ago that I like better. It’s not ideal, and I don’t like using paper, but I have to make adjustments so that the kids can learn. I suspect your kids’ teachers are doing the same thing.

When my child was in ACPS elementary I noticed a stack of text books in the back of the room. I asked the teacher and the principal why kids didn't actually use the books. I was told the same. It is an equity issue and some kids in the class won't be able to read the text. So they threw the baby out with the bathwater and no one got the text books. But text books provide not only text but pictures and diagrams and those often have simple text written under them. Students who can't access all the text in the book might glean some understanding from those.

The worksheets provided were often very simple and cute but lacked and really content or practice.

[Anonymous]

When you have a kid with poor executive function and an LD, a textbook can make all the difference. It allows a student to see their progress, review what they didn’t understand, and have more independence in their work. The tornado of Teachers Pay Teachers worksheets and apps apps and more apps was chaos for us.

[Anonymous]

Textbooks are racist and anti-equity. We should assume kids have zero support at home and can’t read, so no reason to have textbooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, PPs. Please join the rest of us in the 21st century. I know you live to bash ACPS, but in this case, your going to have to trash education nationwide, which is moving away from textbooks. You can still see the course content, just contact your kid's teacher.
Meanwhile, be grateful your kid doesn't have to haul a bunch of books back and forth, and that updates to curriculum can be delivered and adopted more rapidly because the school doesn't have to pay for a bunch of trees to be pulped and handed out.

There is so much privilege in your post it’s nauseating. But it’s a perfect pro ACPS thing to say. Bless your heart.

I would agree though that the lack of textbooks are a national trend so I guess I do have a concern nationally. And generally, there are ACPS problems that are consistent with issues nationally. The problem is ACPS at best is the same and usually worse on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, PPs. Please join the rest of us in the 21st century. I know you live to bash ACPS, but in this case, your going to have to trash education nationwide, which is moving away from textbooks. You can still see the course content, just contact your kid's teacher.
Meanwhile, be grateful your kid doesn't have to haul a bunch of books back and forth, and that updates to curriculum can be delivered and adopted more rapidly because the school doesn't have to pay for a bunch of trees to be pulped and handed out.

There is so much privilege in your post it’s nauseating. But it’s a perfect pro ACPS thing to say. Bless your heart.

I would agree though that the lack of textbooks are a national trend so I guess I do have a concern nationally. And generally, there are ACPS problems that are consistent with issues nationally. The problem is ACPS at best is the same and usually worse on them.

Where is the equity in putting the onerous on parents to get the curriculum online to supplement and support their child. You think everyone has high speed internet, even knows about how to get that information online, etc? Just look at the nightmare that was covid and virtual learning. How many kids actually logged on? How many kids had parents always checking to make sure they learned? The privileged ones. The UMC and UC white people, who claim to be super progressive, cannot comprehend that some kids (probably a lot of kids), don't have the same kind of support at home. Having an actual textbook should't be a luxury.

DC was on a sports team last year with a kid who lived in Section 8 in OT (some of the rougher ones) and I basically drove him to all practices and games for a year. Nice kid, but he often was home alone, or had stayed up very late because no one told him to go to bed or enforced a bedtime, would often have not eaten because no one thought to remind him to eat (he had food in the house), he told us he never logged on to virtual school almost the entire time ACPS was virtual (and we all know how long that is) and he just passed both grades both years which he thought was funny. He said he had to use a hotspot from his brother's phone to be able to log on, and so it was just a pain so he didn't do it. You think he is the exception? You think his parents who don't speak English have any idea how to follow up with the curriculum online? People need to wake up.

[Anonymous]

The pages are too white.