Textbooks, We Don't Need No Stinking Textbooks

While the legislature has been, as Speaker Craddick said, "...wasting time and money..." They've gone and forgot to get textbooks for the current school year, :

With the start of school about a week away, some Central Texas teachers are scrambling for instructional materials because of legislative delays in paying for $295 million worth of updated textbooks for Texas schoolchildren.

"We want textbooks fully funded, so we can place them in your students' hands when they walk through the door on the first day of class," said Bill Britcher, a spokesman for the Leander school district.

But for thousands of Central Texas students, that won't happen. The situation is a byproduct of two legislative special sessions that have failed to produce a successful plan for school finance. The delayed texts cover foreign language, physical education, health, fine arts and other subjects.

Officials in several districts said they would use older texts until the new ones arrive.

[and]

Dottie Hall, textbook coordinator for the Round Rock district, said some books might not be available until late September or early October.

At least 1,000 students in Round Rock's four high schools will be affected by the shortages, she said.

Hall handles the distribution of about $13 million worth of textbooks in the Round Rock district.

Hall said the delays will produce less than ideal learning situations in some classes. Health textbooks, for instance, are more than a decade old and are outdated, given recent concerns such as childhood obesity.

"We haven't gotten updated books on business and computers," she said. "You can easily understand how important it is for our kids to have the very latest information on a rapidly changing field like that." Teachers, however, will deal with the shortages, said Nelson Coulter, principal of McNeil High School in the Round Rock district.

"Courses like health are taught in units," Coulter said. "Teachers in fields that are studied in units or modules of information can generate lesson plans that are not textbook dependent.

That's just great. The governor makes the legislature go into special session to fix the schools and they wind up making the situation worse. No statements from Rep. Krusee of Rep. Gattis on this. I wonder what they think about kids not getting textbooks?