re: #361 wozzablog

Conservatives are in favour of educational reform in everyway possible as long as it doesn’t need paying for.

Businesses also bemoan the lack of a quality education system - but bleet merry murder when asked to pay higher taxes that would buy up to date textbooks or repair crumbling buildings.

Yes - education is more than the sum total of money thrown at schools… but when schools are letting educators go and not hiring assitants and teaching in collapsing buildings and using out of date texts - it is about money to some point.

The textbook industry here in the US is ridiculous, frankly. I taught middle school at a charter school, and our math books were in terrible shape…and our school tested highest in math every year.

Most suburban schools adopt new textbooks every couple of years (my kids are middle schoolers now; my husband’s military so we have moved all over the country and have seen it everywhere we’ve gone) and the new books aren’t any better than the old books.

I’d argue that in math in particular, using 50 year old books would be an improvement. Since the adoption of “new” math, US student math achievement and mastery has dropped precipitously.

And we’ve paid millions and millions of dollars over the years for that …

Frankly, kids don’t learn how to write the way I did 30 years ago either. Our schools would be better if they were using old grammar and phonics stuff too.

You are really spouting nonsense about stuff you’re not familiar with…