Chronic Book Shortages Program Students for Failure

It’s the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan is president of the United States. He is urging the leader of the Soviet Union to “tear down that wall.”

There are no peacekeeping troops in Bosnia and no need for any. America’s last war was Vietnam. And few people outside the military have ever heard of a general named Schwarzkopf.

If you think you have stepped into a time machine, you’re mistaken. You’ve stepped into a California classroom and opened a book. And it’s not a history class; it’s current affairs.

In classrooms across the state, students are handicapped in their learning by books that are sorely out of date. Geography books devote whole chapters to countries that no longer exist. Science books brag that one day man may land on the moon. And books on every subject are torn and ragged. This assumes, of course, that you’re one of the lucky ones who actually gets a copy of these would-be classics.

As a recent Times investigative report detailed, many of our local schools have chronic book shortages. Indeed, a survey conducted last year by the Assn. of American Publishers, in conjunction with the National Education Assn., revealed that not only are 25% of our teachers using books that are more than a decade behind, but also that 25% of our teachers don’t even have enough books to use in class. And more than half of California’s teachers don’t have enough books to send home with their students.

How can we be surprised when California ranks in the bottom fifth of all states on textbook spending per pupil?

There is only one perfectly accurate lesson that we can be assured students will learn from books like these: that California doesn’t care enough about their education to give them a decent book.

Because of inadequate funding, elementary and secondary school districts across the state have had to redirect scarce resources intended for books, purchase textbooks in some areas but not others or simply forego the purchase of new textbooks.

This is unacceptable. It is essential that our public schools provide the best education possible to prepare our students for the challenges of the next century. They will be competing in a global economy with students from Japan, Germany and China. And they are going to need better than the books we are providing now.

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During the last several years, we have worked hard to develop standards in math, science, reading and social sciences. We have spent money on tests to see if our students are meeting these standards. And we will hold those students and their teachers accountable for the results.

But we will be programming our students for failure if we do not give them decent books. We are fortunate that the economy continues to rebound; the legislative analyst’s office now predicts a considerable surplus.

Current projections indicate that there will be sufficient revenue to fund several of California’s neglected education priorities. First among these must be the adequate provision of textbooks. Accordingly, I have introduced Senate Bill 1412, which calls for phasing in, over a three-year period, full state funding to ensure that every child in every public school classroom has an up-to-date book.

We currently spend about $30 per pupil, roughly half of what is necessary to put a book in the hand of every child. This bill will raise the amount we spend on books to $60 per pupil.

But we cannot stop with signing a check. We must insure that every dollar allocated to buy books is used to buy books, nothing more and nothing less. That is why SB 1412 requires the state auditor general to audit the instructional materials accounts of the school districts every year.

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The bill also requires school districts to inform parents in public meetings, newspapers and report cards as to whether they have met their obligation to provide every student, in each subject, at each grade level, a good book. Full funding, yes, but accountability also.

In the short time since its introduction, SB 1412 has attracted wide bipartisan support. Almost all of the chairs and vice chairs of the legislative committees that oversee education and its budget in both houses--Democrats and Republicans--have added their names as coauthors.

The timing may be right to end these book shortages once and for all. The California Constitution does not require much in the way of education. It sets out very few requirements with particularity. But it does say this: Every student must have a book at public expense. Senate Bill 1412 meets that long-neglected but wise dictate.