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Who else is tired of seeing threads about the textbooks in texas

Are you tired of hearing about texas textbooks?


  • Total voters
    17
It's not that people are passionate about it that's annoying, it's that they feel the need to start new threads on it every single time one more thing happens.

"Oh, the board is making these recommendations!"

*starts thread*

"Oh, the board is voting on these recommendations!"

*starts thread*

"Oh, the board approved these recommendations!"

*starts thread*

I used to just merge them, but it's no longer any use. There's a 400 post thread where everyone had their say, and now people are just starting threads over again and going back to the same dumb talking points that we heard 2 months ago.

How about merging them all then closing the thread :mrgreen:

Someone makes a new thread about the exact same thing, merge it with the closed thread.
 
How about merging them all then closing the thread :mrgreen:

Someone makes a new thread about the exact same thing, merge it with the closed thread.

No please! They have too many ****ed up rules here as it is to discourage speech.
 
No please! They have too many ****ed up rules here as it is to discourage speech.

Who cares about speech if all you're going to do with it is open a million threads on the same subject.

I suppose if folks truly gave a **** about speach they would make better use of it.
 
Who cares about speech if all you're going to do with it is open a million threads on the same subject.

I suppose if folks truly gave a **** about speach they would make better use of it.

****ing A :)
 
For a Texan, that would be a compliment.

In my experience, most of the posters from Texas tend to be reasonable and thoughtful, which is more than can be said for everyone.
 
Problem is that most of the rest of the US uses those Texas text books.

Well now would be a good time to change that practice if everyone is all butthurt about it.

I don't really agree with some of the changes myself, but I strongly believe in local government having more control over its education system.
 
Well now would be a good time to change that practice if everyone is all butthurt about it.

I don't really agree with some of the changes myself, but I strongly believe in local government having more control over its education system.

Like the Kansas board? Where each district doesn't have to follow state guidelines?

I used to talk about Kansas's idiotic science policy until I was informed that each district can give the finger to the state guideline committee.
 
For a Texan, that would be a compliment.
What state was it where the best they could find for governor was a pro wrestler (aka fake wrestler) and for their senator the best they could do was a washed-up comedian? Oh yeah, that was MN. :doh

.
 
Well now would be a good time to change that practice if everyone is all butthurt about it.

I don't really agree with some of the changes myself, but I strongly believe in local government having more control over its education system.

Is a local government a book publisher?

Texas is where the school books are printed.

Local governments are laying off teachers because they don't have the money due to the housing prices tanking and property taxes being lowered. Schools are funded with property taxes.

How should they fund new books from more expensive publishers if they don't want to use the books from Texas?
 
Like the Kansas board? Where each district doesn't have to follow state guidelines?

I used to talk about Kansas's idiotic science policy until I was informed that each district can give the finger to the state guideline committee.

I think the highest level of government allowed to dictate to the local governments regarding the education curriculum should be the county.
 
Is a local government a book publisher?

Texas is where the school books are printed.

Local governments are laying off teachers because they don't have the money due to the housing prices tanking and property taxes being lowered. Schools are funded with property taxes.

How should they fund new books from more expensive publishers if they don't want to use the books from Texas?

I guess they'll be trimming their budgets in other areas or they will negotiate deals with other publishers. Either way, if they don't believe what is in texas's textbooks is valid information, then they have an obligation to choose a different textbook anyway.

Or this could all be a big ole tempest in a tea pot that is distracting people from more important national issues.
 
I guess they'll be trimming their budgets in other areas or they will negotiate deals with other publishers. Either way, if they don't believe what is in texas's textbooks is valid information, then they have an obligation to choose a different textbook anyway.

Or this could all be a big ole tempest in a tea pot that is distracting people from more important national issues.



It doesn't work that way.

The textbooks market does not operate according to the same economic principles as a normal consumer market. First, the end consumers (students) do not select the product, and the product is not purchased by faculty nor professors. Therefore, price is removed from the purchasing decision, giving the producer (publishers) disproportionate market power to set prices high.

This fundamental flaw in the market is blamed as the primary reason that prices are out of control. The term "Broken Market" first appeared in Economist James Koch's analysis of the market commissioned by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.[3]

This situation is exacerbated by the lack of competition in the textbook market. Consolidation in the past few decades has reduced the number of major textbook companies from around 30 to just a handful.[4] Consequently, there is less competition than there used to be, and the high cost of starting up keeps new companies from entering.
[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook]Textbook - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
I think the highest level of government allowed to dictate to the local governments regarding the education curriculum should be the county.

Some of the smaller populated states have found it practical to administer education from the state level because the population is so scattered it is just more cost effective and efficient for everybody to do it that way. Some of those entire state populations are smaller than your average big city though.

But I agree that the more local education happens, the far better the schools are going to be. For sure I would like to see the federal government out of the education business completely other than to do data and information gathering and make that available to the states and individual school districts so they can know how they compare with everybody else.
 

It most certainly does "work that way". Wiki :roll: aside, if the textbook manufacturers are selling out of their own state, they can be made subject to laws governing pricing the school district's can pay. Otherwise, their textbooks are out of any bid. Removing the market from the seller is almost always punative enough to come to some arrangement.

And besides...what are you gonna do? Go in and tell Texas it can't exert it's legal control over the curriculum? Try that one...let's see how it works out. The fact is, Texas did what Texas had the authority to do and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Clinging to this problem of the fact that textbooks are printed there is nothing more than an excuse to bemoan the fact that conservatives basically won this one and to refuse to acknowledge that conservativism is strong enough to achieve such a victory.

Everyone just needs to deal with it. Don't like it...don't move to Texas.
 
Some of the smaller populated states have found it practical to administer education from the state level because the population is so scattered it is just more cost effective and efficient for everybody to do it that way. Some of those entire state populations are smaller than your average big city though.

But I agree that the more local education happens, the far better the schools are going to be. For sure I would like to see the federal government out of the education business completely other than to do data and information gathering and make that available to the states and individual school districts so they can know how they compare with everybody else.

I think the federal government should have some hand in education, especially in the area of passing out grants and endowments and having some say over how those grants are given. Their influence on standardizing the curricula of various districts should go no further than the ability to influence funding. As a nation, there needs to be some conformity in what we all learn at the national, state, and local levels. Otherwise, education might become to compartmentalized by cultural difference.

But other than that small influence, you are right. We don't need anymore NCLB's happening.
 
Is a local government a book publisher?

Texas is where the school books are printed.

Local governments are laying off teachers because they don't have the money due to the housing prices tanking and property taxes being lowered. Schools are funded with property taxes.

How should they fund new books from more expensive publishers if they don't want to use the books from Texas?


Wait, so your theory is that because the TX curriculum is going to say this, other states are being forced to follow along because the books are printed in TX?

If I misconstrued anything you said, please correct me.
 
I think the federal government should have some hand in education, especially in the area of passing out grants and endowments and having some say over how those grants are given. Their influence on standardizing the curricula of various districts should go no further than the ability to influence funding. As a nation, there needs to be some conformity in what we all learn at the national, state, and local levels. Otherwise, education might become to compartmentalized by cultural difference.

But other than that small influence, you are right. We don't need anymore NCLB's happening.

NCLB, as bad as it was and it was bad, was better than no standards and failing schools that existed before it. There was a narrowing of the disparity between the worst performing school and the better schools, but it did not correct the core problems that hinder excellence in public education in the USA.

My libertarian soul wants the government collecting no monies for education or dispensing any monies for education. Without so much education monies being swallowed up in an ineffective bureaucracy and unions, there will be more money that can be made available to the schools themselves.

I don't want the federal government to have any authority to tell us what we must or what we shouldn't be learning. Before the federal government got involved in that, there were states who did a better job than others just like there are now. But the kids overall were getting a far better education. The standards will be established by colleges, universities, and industry. The feds should be involved in gathering information on college entrance requirements and industry requirements across the county and making that available to the school districts so they can advise the students. Also statistics should be gathered from all the school districts and made available so each state or school district can evaluate how they're doing relative to everybody else.

Otherwise I want the federal government out of it.
 
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