Part one: Reality Responses

an Invisible Transparency

Why does my Anatomy Textbook cost $170.00?

Top Textbook manufacturers of 2008: Prentice-Hall, McGraw-Hill, Wiley & Sons....
A case of Politics vs Education....
and Textbook Lobbyists and State Textbook Committees are the major players in the education game.
Who is on the State textbook committee? What is their philosophy? The answers to these questions will lead us to the big key of Earthly education.
Interpretation.
From the Bible to the truth about Stem Cells, the only way that I, as a 22-year-old Kinesiology student, can receive the truth about the world around me is through a medium. In the case of the past, I must rely on storytellers to relate the events to me. In the case of the present time, I must rely on my powers of observation, or others “more scientific” observations. In the case of stem cells, I need the tools and the money needed to create huge microscopes and snatch kidney cells from embryo’s, and it’s very difficult for an unqualified person to score embryo’s in America nowadays. Meanwhile, I sit here doodling microscopic abstracts of hair follicles and cell nucleus’s, wondering why my textbook costs $170.00, and why there is only one book that is qualified to relay the information to me.
Since I’m starving for an education like most young responsibility-seeking kids, I will do just about anything to learn more about the world I live in and the body I inhabit. According to Wikipedia: “Education encompasses both the teaching and learning of knowledge, proper conduct, and technical competency.”
Knowledge is defined as: “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association”
Yes, I’m looking to know myself and my world through my experience of the world and my body.
But what has become evident about my world and my body are two disconcerting facts:
I need money to survive(bio-survival tickets as Robert Anton Wilson stated) and knowledge to succeed, and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing won’t give me money and the Board of Education won’t give me knowledge.
I have to earn it.
So I’m in school. I’m in debt.
And my countries administrators don’t give a shit.
Textbook publishers, I hope you choked on that beef a la bordelaise.
“To "encourage" the use of their books, book manufacturers often send the school boxes of free books. Sometimes professors then begin to sell these books on ebay for a tidy profit or to students at ‘slightly less than the new costs.” (Warnertoddhouston, online)
“When a student enters a classroom he is told which book he will use, not which ones he can choose from. Therefore there is no competition. The student has no choice and that being the case, the book manufacturer has no forces to oppose their high prices. No market forces guide prices and book manufacturers can charge whatever they like.
Then we get to the textbooks actually written by the professors that a university then adopts for that professor's class or his department. These, being specialty, small-run printing items are also exorbitantly high in price. And, once again, there are not market forces to put commons sense caps on pricing.”(Warnertoddhouston, online)
“As I understand it, (board members) are simply browbeating their textbook manufacturers to either putting things in or taking things out even though the law says they don't have the authority," said former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, who drafted the state's current textbook legislation. The law, passed in 1995, sought to limit the board's ability to alter textbooks for ideological reasons.”
When I was born into the U.S., textbooks cost students $300 per year, and minimum wage was 3.35. Now with the wages at 7.00 an hour: “College students spend an average of $900 per year on textbooks. These prices increase six percent per year and have tripled from 1986 to 2004, according a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.”
The governor vetoed Senate Bill One, the California Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or D.R.E.A.M. Act, and Senate Bill 832 - the College Textbook Affordability Act. However, he did sign Assembly Bill 1548, an alternative textbook bill which requires both university bookstores to release the textbook wholesale price and for publishers to print a list of revisions made to new editions. This alternative bill known as the College Textbook Transparency Act becomes effective in 2010.
The vetoed textbook bill, SB 832, which was sponsored by the California Student Public Interest Research Group, had similar requirements as the bill that did pass, but it would have also required publishers to issue an estimate as to how long each edition would remain unrevised. The vetoed bill also required university professors to provide this information to students and post lists online immediately.
The approved textbook bill, AB 1548[, which was supported by the Association of American Publishers, will offer information to faculty members regarding wholesale prices and edition changes, but only upon request.
Tessa Atkinson-Adams, a CalPIRG project coordinator for the textbook campaign, said she and the organization feel Schwarzenegger made the wrong choice. However, she also said CalPIRG will plan to tackle the problem in the future by creating projects that will offer textbooks online for free, among other things.
“We’re very disappointed in the governor’s decision,” Atkinson-Adams, a third-year political science and environmental studies major, said. “AB 1548 does nothing to correct the market imbalance. It just goes to show that the publishing companies really are making an effort to not disclose their prices and to continue to use unfair business practices.”
In his veto message, Schwarzenegger wrote that he signed AB 1548 because it dealt with not only the publishing industry, but bookstores and professors as well.
“This bill [SB 832] focuses strictly on textbook publisher policies and fails to recognize that the affordability of textbooks is a shared responsibility among publishers, college bookstores and faculty members,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “Many of the same concepts in SB 832 are included in AB 1548, but AB 1548 recognizes the shared responsibility and attempts to address the issue in a more comprehensive manner.”
Enough B.S. I’m getting involved.
Email these people for info on how you too can help to enhance our education:
tara@calpirgstudents.org
danny@calpirgstudents.org