Reply to Why oh why don't schools use textbooks anymore??

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Reply to "Why oh why don't schools use textbooks anymore??"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not a teacher, but teachers at my kid's schools have said that the issue is that[b] textbooks become outdated so quickly after they are printed.[/b] Putting so much money into a resource that needs to be reprinted/updated frequently is wasteful.[/quote]

This is such a ridiculous concept.
US books are used by so many schools overseas -- both international and local schools where English is a second or a third language. I loved all of my textbooks and was very surprised that they are not used by the majority of the schools in the USA.

It think that the biggest problem comes from the fact that there is no national curriculum. In each state counties spend an exorbitant amount of funds on the so called [i]new and improved curriculum[/i] year after year.

Next the teachers feel that it is their responsibility to "create material" to meet the demands of the constantly changing curriculum.
I was very disappointed at a highly regarded charter school where the created material was no more than randomly printed out material from the internet. Add to it the model of reading/writing workshop or math workshop, and you deal with a teacher doing a 5 minute direct teaching only with the rest of the time students being in small groups teaching each other ... aka one student doing the work while others either copy or get bored and act out.

If not a national curriculum, there should be a state curriculum where textbooks/workbooks are in use. The ELL. ESL,  new students who have never been to school in their home country can all be accommodated if the classroom teacher is experienced.
As for  BASIS,  maybe things will get better both with admin and keeping the good teachers. From the very beginning there was a  [i] de facto[/i] parent principal, master puppeteer,  who somehow decided what happened at the school. Her last kid graduated last year and the family is no longer in the DC area. Good riddance. [/quote]

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