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Back to school season is in full swing, which means students have to deal with the stressful task of purchasing costly textbooks. Especially college students, who have to pay hundreds of dollars per textbook, which raises all sorts of questions. Like why are they so expensive?

How much are they still needed? Who determines which books they have to get? I'm going to take a dive into the truth about textbooks. Expensive textbooks present a notable issue for students due to the financial strain they impose. The high cost forced students to choose between essential expenses and required course materials, hindering learning and affecting marginalized individuals.

Moreover, these expenses limit open access to knowledge. Undermining collaborative and equitable education. Addressing this problem is essential for promoting fair and unhindered learning opportunities. Are textbooks getting more and more expensive every year? Hard copy books can cost as much as 400 with an average price between 80 and 150.

That price of textbooks increases by an average of 12% with each new edition. Between 1977 and 2015, the cost of textbooks increased by 1, 041%. According to educational data, oftentimes, low income students will skip buying textbooks altogether when they can't afford them. In 2020, 65% of college students reported skipping out on buying course materials because they were too expensive.

Many college textbooks are highly specialized and the material is unavailable in any other book. The low volume of published books and the lack of market competition drive publishers to jack up prices, according to ThoughtCo. com. Joining us to talk about this is Leah Pinto, who was a former teacher for 12 years.

I have very strong feelings about textbooks. As far as not only the price but also the usability. As a science person, and that's all my career has been in sciences, they don't necessarily keep up anyways. And so you're investing a lot of money in a resource that doesn't always reflect the most current information.

And and they are very expensive, they become prohibitive. For a lot of, I taught in a title 1 district in a very rural area. We could not afford the latest and greatest textbooks. And so it creates this inequity among the students where if you're in an affluent districts, you probably will have a better.

Level of current content than other students in other situations. So I think as a teacher, seeing that inequity really was difficult. It became difficult as a teacher to not have a textbook to use because it was no longer relevant information. And so we'd have to go out and find our information elsewhere.

And then as a student. Throughout my, both my bachelor's and master's program. That was, it's a lot of money and it encourages you to try and find other ways to pass the class, maybe without ever going out and buying the textbook. And it puts you at a disadvantage unless you buy into that ridiculously expensive book that the professor may only referenced a couple of times.

Also joining us is Dan Bonn. He's a coach and a teacher and has been in education for 27 years. Overall, I think textbooks are a great resource. And that's how I use them. I use them as a resource. I don't use them as a curriculum guide. I don't use them as a pacing guide. I don't use them as a be all and end all.

Like everything that a kid has to know is in there. Even when I did use them I never used them carte blanche. Like I would pick and choose the pieces that I wanted because every individual teacher I think has their own style and their own way of presenting material and to just say that this is the way that you're going to teach, I think restricts that art of teaching.

I believe overall they are ridiculously overpriced. I believe that students don't use them the way we would like them to use them. And I am speaking from my own personal experience because I remember as a high school student and even sometimes just a college student, we would have a textbook reading assignment that I never did.

It's a valuable resource for some individuals. There are some people I think that do need that. That in hand, I can read this, and this is the way I learn best, sort of thing. But I think to carte blanche, just give them out to everybody and say, this is what we're using, this is, the be all end all is restrictive, to say the least.

How much are textbooks still needed today compared to how they were needed 15 years ago? About 60% of teachers say they still use district adopted textbooks as one resource among many. According to data from Brookings Institution, but the vast majority also look elsewhere for materials, usually online, according to Edutopia.

org. I think with the availability of computerized resources, that the need for textbooks has been reduced. Now, most textbook companies provide an e book that people can use as a resource. I think. The one valuable thing about a textbook is the information in it has been vetted. It's not I can't, I hate having kids just Google things because they don't have the skill set yet at my level to understand what the information is and be able to parse out the fake information and the real information from a Google search.

But I think that's something that we need as educators to teach them is how to sift through the noise that is the internet to find truthful information. And. Textbooks are a legitimate source of truthful information. They've been edited, they've been proofread, they've been vetted by, they're usually written by people in the field, by scientists.

I know the ones that we used to use were written by Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine, who are both very well respected scientists. But I don't think, I don't think its use is the, its need is the same as it is. today as it was 20 years ago when I started or even 30 years ago when I was in school. I will say that I think there are other much better ways.

To access content for students other than a written textbook there's a lot of issues with textbooks, not only in the fact that they are not necessarily relevant and keeping up with information, but also in, like, how students are able to access them. Some students are going to come to you with lower reading levels, language challenges, dyslexia, all these.

These challenges that we see in the classroom and a textbook doesn't necessarily have accommodations for those the teacher and the student have to work to find accommodations, whereas I can find a content like some kind of online accessible content that automatically, differentiates for all those different subpopulations within my classroom.

When I was teaching probably my last five years in the classroom, we used the textbook to cut out pictures because that was the only thing it was good for. Every other piece of content we gave, all the other learning we did was in other ways, really great ways. We would use a combination of videos worksheets, hands on activities, you name it, we used it.

Everything except a textbook. Have you ever purchased an older version of a textbook or purchased one from overseas to try and save money? 50% obtain textbooks illegally. Of all the students that use digital textbooks, half admit having used at least some pirated copies. This number has been relatively stable since 2020, and doesn't seem to be impacted by recent prosecutions and fines handed out by the courts.

This relatively high percentage doesn't mean that students are oblivious to the law. 70% admit to knowing the piracy is illegal. According to tort frank.com master's program, going through the chemistry class specifically, I remember this I was looking for the class the textbook that they gave me and pulling it up online.

I found a used book for much cheaper option. When I got it, it was. Pretty much unusable. Like it said it was in really good condition, but it was not. And so I sent it back and I ended up getting another one because I didn't want to pay full price for a brand new one. And it was still the wrong edition because I went for the cheaper version.

So it it became a real challenge to, I was looking for any way possible to get around paying this 400 textbook fee. And I. Wasn't able to, I know there's all kinds of ways you can rent it. You can access it. Like you said, it oversees by a different version, but it. It was really challenging, took a lot of time and still didn't work.

Oh, wow. I know we have personally bought used textbooks via something like Amazon for English language learners, because we don't have a huge population of ELL students in our school, so it doesn't really, it financially, it's not very responsible for us to buy a whole set of Spanish or Russian or whatever.

We. If the situation arises where we need to, we'll often go online and buy a used one or maybe a foreign copy. to help those students. I know my kids, when they were going through college used rental services for textbooks a lot through Amazon, especially for the core, for the non core classes, for the non engineering classes, just to save a few bucks.

They would rent them, return them at the end of the semester and get a portion of that money back. But the textbook costs, I know for a while I taught AP Biology and the textbooks for that were on average, 150 a textbook, which is, it's astronomical. To me, they're pricing themselves out of the workforce, out of the educational force.

Do you see any significant differences in newer books compared to those used before? Some textbooks may only have minor updates, such as corrected errors and updated statistics, while others may undergo significant revisions to reflect new developments in the field. Or to reorganize the material in a different way according to gradepivot.

com. In the experience that I have, and again, I haven't actually used a textbook. And when I say use, like I'll tell kids, reach underneath your desk and grab the textbook and look up this or go to this page and read this snippet. So I don't have the experience that other people might have in this, with this particular question, but from what I saw in the textbooks that we have, they were using more like digital links online resources.

You can, scan a code and go to this place here and watch an additional video or something along those lines. And that, that's fairly recent within the past. 10 years or so that's come about every in texas where I live every eight years we go through an adoption process where you get a new textbook so every eight years every content area like language arts and math Science and Social Studies has to adopt a new resource.

Maybe there's not a lot of changes in English, math. You might not see it pretty much is recovered and then resubmitted. But in Science and Social Studies, you really do have some significant changes. Sometimes content will change, and it doesn't nec The book doesn't necessarily keep up with that.

We have all these great latest discoveries. And thinking may have changed. We have new or we've disproved certain theories and the textbook really still doesn't reflect that. And it may take 20 or 30 years before it really catches up. It's quite sad. So even though you're investing all this curriculum money every eight years.

To stay updated. It's still not staying current with current scientific thought or history there's just changes that happen. So no, I would agree with that it's Oftentimes not current content and it's a lot of the same stuff and there's not a lot of relevancy to anything that's changed Yeah Why do you think schools are constantly pushing new books on students the practice of requiring the newest editions?

has faced criticism and concerns, especially due to the financial burden it places on students. New editions are often more expensive, and some argue that the updates between editions are not always substantial enough to justify the cost. That is a really good question. I don't understand, especially going through college, why I needed the 14th version of the chemistry.

We'll go back to that one. But why did I need the 14th version of the chemistry textbook when it really wasn't any different from the 13th? And yet it's an extra. Several hundred dollars. I'm not sure. I think part of it is simply to keep the the relevancy of the professor. If I'm able to go out and get the book and just do it on my own, then why am I paying this exorbitant amount for my tuition and then buying into the supplies?

I do think a lot of people buy books from the colleges themselves and and maybe there's a portion of that they're getting access to. It doesn't, I'm not sure I have a logical reason because I don't think it makes a lot of sense. I don't know where the logic is in that. Yeah. And honestly, in, in college, and I went to a great school.

It was a state school. It was not a private institution. It was a really good basic level education. And there's just no reason to have to change that book every year. So it didn't make any sense to me. For my subject area, personally, I teach science, and this is one of the reasons why I went away from textbooks.

Because the science is changing so rapidly, the textbooks can't keep up. In the time it takes for them to write, edit, proofread, publish a textbook, sell the textbook, get it out to the, get it out to the schools, some of that science isn't, Breaking anymore. It's not up to date. So you constantly have to be keeping on the cusp of that.

And I think a lot of schools purchase textbooks personally, because it saves their teachers time in having to go out and coalesce all that information that's out there. It provides some of the resource. The problem is, again, I think some people have become so reliant on textbooks. As a curriculum source as a pacing guide as the be all end all that they have not gone out to find additional information to provide their kids with maybe alternative viewpoints or different ways to look at the same set of data.

And that's why I stopped using text because. After I gained a certain amount of experience, I felt comfortable enough with the story that I wanted to tell the kids throughout the course of the year to not need that kind of guide that I could only use that is as a, like I said, many times of resource.

I think one of the reasons that a lot of schools. Feel up to date or feel like the need to do that is because it covers their backside, that they have something to fall back on and say, we're teaching this because it's in the book, because the book says that this is part of it. Most of the textbooks do try to follow a national curriculum.

Or in some cases a state curriculum. I know Texas and California and New York have state curriculums that textbook companies try to write textbooks for. So it's a way for a district to say to the board of ed, to say to the parents that this is what we're using to prove that we're teaching your kids what is, what's required of them.

As a teacher, we were in my district, we were given a lot of. Free reign as far as how we chose to construct the curriculum and we're given these state standards. And I have to teach the standards, but how I teach them is often up to me. And so we were able to not necessarily use the textbook for, I will say in my district, we couldn't use the textbook.

We purchased a book that it was a consumable version. And then it had an online like component for their like digital textbook. And we could never. really access the digital textbook and the consumables got used up within two years. No matter how gentle you are with these books, they're going to get used up.

So after that, we really didn't have access to a textbook at all and didn't miss it. Yeah, just didn't at all. I think it does depend on content area somewhat. I think in language arts is often more of a push that you have to teach off of these specific texts or these specific passages within the textbook.

I in my current position, I work with teachers all over the state of Texas and Florida, and they have a range of autonomy. Some of them are like, scripted down to the word. You will use this passage on this day textbook page. Number 368. others are like, I don't know. Let's just do whatever today.

It's, it is a wide range. I think it depends a lot on the district. A lot on the individual teachers and their experience and ability levels. I know that, the state of Texas requires that update every eight years, and the teachers go through the adoption process. In larger districts, it's often curriculum coordinators, science specialists, whatever, who are the ones who decide what book it's going to be, or what resource they're going to use.

I think, to a degree, some people are finally catching on and moving away from just a paper textbook as your only curriculum resource. I don't so in some districts, the teachers have a lot of input on what product they get. And in other districts, they're like, this is what we chose. This is what you get have fun.

It can really vary. Pretty widely. I think education is changing and because of the teacher shortages we're seeing, we're getting so many teachers coming in that don't have much experience. Some of them haven't even been through a full teaching program. They're getting alternate certified.

We're going through some really crazy lengths to get teachers in the classroom right now. And these teachers may need that extra support of having more scripted, more Complete curriculum handed to them. Whereas an experienced teacher when he's been in the classroom a while and knows how their students learn how their students work and how to craft a really good lesson really doesn't need that level of scripting.

And that really can hold back. I think the learning that happens because so much of what a teacher does is read their students. And make decisions based on what they're getting in that moment that just in time instruction and a textbook never allows for that. You just go on to the next paragraph.

You go on to the next question. The next unit. There's none of that. Let's go deeper into this. Hey, y'all are really curious about this. I can use this for a lot of, let's get into this next thing or alternately like they're not getting this. They are so not getting this. We need to take a step back.

I'm going to build a foundation to redo it. And there's none of that about available in a textbook like that just doesn't work. But that's the craft of a teacher and an experienced teacher. Yeah, If you don't have that level of experience, then at least there's some structure and support there when you have a written curriculum in our particular district.

It's left up to the choice of the teacher. For the most part. A lot of times departments will get together and they will decide if they all agree they want a textbook. They'll decide on which textbook that they are going to use if it's a new textbook, then they have to go through a textbook selection committee process where they have to.

There's a whole series of paperwork questions that they have to fill out, then they have to go to the Board of Education. So the Board of Education approves it, but the ultimate decision on whether or not to use it or not comes down to the teachers. I like the ability to say, to make my decisions of how I think I'm going to best deliver the information that's necessary.

But there's a caveat to that. Somebody has to be overseeing what is being taught in the classroom. There has to be a curriculum, there has to be a set of standards that are guiding the instruction, however you choose to present it. Whether it be a textbook that you're using as you're primary source, whether it be, flipped classrooms where people are doing videos at home and then coming in and kids are practicing and with the class with the teacher, there has to be some accountability for what it is that you're teaching.

And it has to be aligned to a set of standards, whether those standards are state or national. Local, whatever they may be. So that decision has to be a part of the bigger process. If you're going to choose this textbook, you have to be able to prove that textbook is aligned with those standards if you're choosing not to do it, then what are you using as resources to present this information so that you assess those standards?

Okay.

I think the biggest thing that I would tell people is you have to understand that. Every kid comes to us with different circumstances, different learning styles, different abilities. And a textbook is a kind of a one size fits all sort of resource. And there is no one size fits all student. So

I would say if you're using this textbook or a textbook or even or any curriculum resource and thinking that it's going to fit the needs of every particular kid, no matter who they are that comes through your door from year to year to year. That you really should look a little bit deeper into studies on, on learning styles and how kids learn and things like that.

Without sounding too negative what the textbook companies are promising when they come into a district and they have all the bells and whistles and they have all this fabulous stuff is not what's being delivered down at the student level. So it's not translating from. Whichever textbook company is and they have all this wonderful stuff and it's going to be so great for your kids.

But by the time it reaches, especially a new student, a new teacher, a struggling teacher, all they have is. One single tool. It's a book, and it's not enough. You have to have more tools in your toolbook, and you have to have more more options to reach all your students in so many different ways.

And a textbook is just so much one size fits all. It's limited in how you can differentiate. It's limited in how you can change things up and explore. And the companies may claim otherwise. They may say, oh, no, we have. This version, it's not practical in the classroom to differentiate using a textbook and it limits what you're able to do as far as exploring in a lot of different ways.

Thank you for watching TFD Deep Dives. For more episodes like this one, please make sure to like or follow. Reporting to you from Fairview Heights, Illinois, I am Ben from TFD Deep Dives.