Books Over 200 Pages Considered Harmful To Students
from the legislation-for-dummies dept
Leave it to lawmakers to replace one problem with a totally inane and dangerously misguided one. The California Assembly just passed a bill that bans textbooks longer than 200 pages, requiring publishers to shorten their tomes and include -- get this -- an appendix of related websites. The bill, California AB 756, ostensibly addresses the problem of outdated textbooks while encouraging use of the internet for learning. There are so many things wrong with this bill, it's hard to know where to begin. Well-meaning as it is, catering to the short attention spans of kids is the most counterproductive thing the state could do. Teachers are complaining all the time they can't get students to read more books and spend less time online. If the books are long and boring, find better books. Don't commission shorter boring books. Failing that, maybe they should just go with the best books they can find and understand that education requires a modicum of an attention span. And kids don't need a soon-to-be-outdated list of websites to encourage web research. On the contrary, they need more guidance on how to use it more judiciously and appropriately. Also, the law defines the books in question as "instructional materials." Does that include novels? Dictionaries? Reference guides? If this bill does become law, looks like the makers of Cliffs Notes and Reader's Digest will be pleasantly surprised.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
A legitimate reason
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A legitimate reason
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hopeless
They should test 7th graders in public schools for basic reading/writing/math skills, and those that fail go straight to jail (or Mexico which ever is cheaper).
//can you tell I'm tired of dumbasses taking up space in the world???
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Huh
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Easy:
This will fix all the kids problems' and provide more revenue for opticians!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
California
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]