Poll: do your children have textbooks?

[Anonymous]

My kids have attended elementary school in two different states now and by and large they have had very few textbooks so far. I find it a bit shocking because I grew up in a foreign country and we had textbooks for every subject starting in 1st grade. I imagine this is due to the fact that there is no national curriculum here and that boards of education are constantly altering curricula, so that it's almost impossible to find a textbook that matches what you're supposed to teach? However, I also find it incredibly impractical from the point of view of understanding what my kids are doing in school. I'm curious to know whether this is a general practice or whether we've just been unlucky so far.

So to participate please state your district, grades your child(ren) attend, and the subjects for which they have a textbook. I'll start:

Fairfax
5th grade AAP: math textbook only (there was a social studies text last year but it got recalled for inaccuracy).
3rd grade AAP: math textbook only

When we lived in the midwest the kids also had a reading textbook.

[Anonymous]

My DCs are in 3rd and K. They do not have textbooks. I'm fine with it. Up until 3rd grade many students are still in the learning to read stage, so textbooks would be worthless. My kids seem to be learning just fine without them.

[Anonymous]

My kids mostly have workbooks. I have at times found this a problem, especially in math and science when something to refer back to would be helpful. For reading they are doing novels so those do come back.

[Anonymous]

Grade 5. Textbooks for science, history, foreign language, math. Novels for English. Also additional workbooks for foreign language. Private.

[Anonymous]

I thought most of the school systems around here were converting to online textbooks.

[Anonymous]

ereaders will very soon replace textbooks. They are a relic of the dinosaurs.

[Anonymous]

I don't recall having textbooks in elementary school where I grew up (midwest). Not having a national curriculum doesn't have anything to do with it. You don't have to have the same materials in order to meet the same standards. The resources our FCPS school has allow the teachers to print out reading books/pamphlets that are appropriate for each child's level. It's much more individualized than if everyone had the same textbook. At these ages, the text would be far too easy for some kids and far too difficult for others.

[Anonymous]

Highly regarded DC public charter school, no. Except for math. The executive director is into "saving money." They break a lot of copyright rules and xerox a lot.

[Anonymous]

Oh wow - I guess we are the oddballs. My parochial school 4th grader has texts for math, social studies, science, and reading. Workbooks for math, social studies, reading, English, spelling, religion, handwriting and French. 6th grader has texts for math, social studies and science. Workbooks for math, social studies, reading, English, vocabulary/spelling, religion and French and uses 4 novels for Literature. They do not get a lot of worksheets and most notes/written work are done in their notebooks with some photocopied study guides.

[Anonymous]

If textbooks are online, are they going to give everyone a computer or will children only have access during school hours. If not this is a huge equity red flag, IMO.