Fraters Libertas

Is Our Children Learning?

Tom Swift from Pair O' Dice is a St. Paul resident, a parent of school-aged kids, and a long time advocate for reform of the public school system (if you can call system dismantling a "reform"). He's got more on the Zelma Wiley/Maxfield School imbroglio, including some first hand observations of what it's like dealing with The System.

Bill Sweetman is another St. Paulite and published author. He writes in with his experience in book acquisition for the school district:

The brouhaha over books reminded me of an incident a couple of years ago. when I served on our district's Curriculum Review Committee. One evening, we had a presentation from our media specialists. In support of their case for more money, they wheeled in a library cart full of books. I don't remember the actual number or total cost that they quoted, but I was rather surprised to find an average of $17+ per book.

I said that this seemed a little steep, in the Amazon era, for a batch that included elementary-school and middle-school books. (Later, I found only a small minority of kids'/student books that cost more than $17 online.) Moreover, an outfit that spends $80K+ on library books a year should be able to negotiate bigger discounts; I know that my publisher sells at 50% of cover price to the smallest retailer. The answer left my jaw on the table.

The district, I was told, usually paid MORE than retail. They still acquired their books through "jobbers" who buy books in bulk from the publisher, add Dewey labels and Mylar covers and put together the school's mixed order. Granted, that was probably the only way to do things in 1990.

I don't think this has changed. The media specialists were very defensive and weren't about to do anything that made their lives more difficult (like organizing a posse of volunteers to label and cover books). They just wanted more money to do things the old way. And that's why the books in the school library are old.