I’m actually even more bothered by the problem now that I’m a college instructor than I was as a student. I had TOPS stipends or grad school assistantships to pay for my textbooks; I got to keep the remainder, so I had an incentive to buy books for as little as possible, but the sting of spending $250 or more for a semester’s worth of books is greatly lessened when you’re getting help to pay for them. But as an instructor, I don’t want to force overpriced textbooks upon students who may or may not be able to easily afford the books.

Right now I’m teaching a mythology class. I had been a TA for a class a few years back and we used Morford and Lenardon’s Classical Mythology (8th edition). It was a good book, I was familiar with it, and it was my first time teaching a mythology class, so I went with it. Sure, I gritted my teeth a little bit at the fact that my students would have to pay $70 or so for it, but c’est la vie. I used it, it worked well, and I’d certainly recommend it if the cost isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, the cost is a problem. I’m teaching the same mythology class during the summer, and I was debating whether or not to use the textbook. I go to look it up on amazon and see that there’s now a ninth edition, which came out in February 2010. The eighth edition came out in 2007. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that enough changed in the study of a field that goes back two thousand years to necessitate a new edition just three years after the preceding one. The sole reason is money.

So why are textbooks so damn expensive? Wikipedia’s page on textbooks is pretty helpful, and it includes a link to a PDF copy of a report written by James V. Koch, an economics professor and former college president. In that report he notes the major problem: the people who decide what books must be bought (i.e., faculty) are not the people who pay for the books (students). Students are more or less forced into buying whatever book the teacher requires; the teacher has no direct incentive to see that textbooks are affordable. Anyone who knows anything at all about economics can see that this will lead to trouble. Since students don’t have a choice and professors don’t have an incentive, the textbook companies hold the upper hand. They can churn out a slightly modified copy of a perfectly good book and quit publishing the old one. Sure, there will still be used copies of the old versions, but faculty will gravitate toward the shiny new version of the textbook. The book authors, publishers, and retailers make money, and the students are left footing the bill. (Note: I didn’t even get into the problem of professor/authors who stand to profit when students buy their textbooks. I had one professor who did that, but at least he was selling a $13 book directly to us. And given that the author is one of the most prominent libertarian economists, I don’t think he’d have stopped us from buying a used copy. And there have only been two editions of the book: one in 1991, the other in 2008. And as far as I know, they’re pretty much identical.)

Now, short of a government takeover there’s not much that can be done to the publishers themselves—it’s a free country, after all. And the students are largely powerless in the matter—sure, they can shop around, buy used textbooks, take different courses, whatever—but if they need a certain class and the professor requires a certain textbook, there’s not much they can do. The power to change things rests with the universities and with instructors; and let’s face it, universities are bureaucratic nightmares that have a tough time getting anything done. So it’s really up to the teachers. True, in some cases there may be a conflict of interest when professors write textbooks, but the vast majority of professors don’t. They need to stand up and say that they won’t stand for this practice and force ridiculously overpriced textbooks on their students. I for one won’t use the Morford and Lenardon textbook this summer, and it’s highly unlikely I’d use it ever again (unless my students will be able to acquire reasonably priced books). I’m planning on referring my students to a bunch of different online sources. It’s going to make my life more difficult—I already have a pretty good idea of how to teach from the M&L textbook—but it’s worth it to save my students money and get the satisfaction of sticking it to “the man.”*

So does anyone defend the system as it stands now? Well, the textbook companies, of course, and the moronic author-professors who work for them. Consider this essay from Henry Roediger, a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. Who does he blame? Not the publishing companies—he works for them, after all—but used book retailers! These retailers include the huge companies like Barnes and Noble who run so many of the college bookstores today. In other words, big publishing conglomerates=good, big retailing conglomerates=bad. He points out the astronomical profits made by resellers, and whines that poor, starving tenured profs like him are getting screwed when someone resells a used copy of a book that was already legally purchased.**

Furthermore, he writes that “unless and until laws are changed to prevent the organized sale of used books, you can expect textbook prices to keep increasing.” Stop the resale of completely legal goods? How ridiculous is that? Whether your political leanings are left, right, or middle, no sane person could argue for banning the resale of used books except out of greed and self-interest. Such a restriction would drastically contravene existing US doctrine on copyright law (see the Wikipedia article on first-sale doctrine for more details). And would we start banning the secondhand sale of any good whatsoever? Send the police to garage sales and thrift stores? I imagine Roediger and others of his ilk might argue that the intellectual property content in a book makes it different than most other types of goods, but just about everything derives from intellectual property of some kind, either a copyright or patent. Suppose you buy a dress at a garage sale. The dress has a fancy pattern which was clearly the work of an artist or clothing designer who labored to come up with such a garment. The designer’s intellectual property is a major reason you buy that dress rather than another, just as an author’s intellectual property is a reason you buy one book rather than another, but was the designer screwed over? No, of course not. Nor is the book author screwed over. Sure, the author would like to make as much money as possible. But why should the textbook author, uniquely of all merchants, be entitled to see that every individual who uses his item pay him separately? Sure, there is a unique market for textbooks, in that they are needed only for short periods of time, and many people don’t wish to keep them, but would rather resell them.*** But that’s the publishing companies’ problem, not mine. Make things that people actually want to keep, and maybe there wouldn’t be so many used copies out there.

Roediger outlines the schemes that the publishing companies undertake: publishing new books frequently, raising prices, bundling CDs and other crap with the textbook, etc. I can’t really blame the publishers; they’re out to make money, after all. And yes, it does cost money to develop textbooks, and yes, they aren’t making money on used textbooks. But I can blame the disingenuous, nonsensical arguments of the flacks who work for them. The simple fact is that new editions of textbooks simply aren’t needed at the swift rate at which they are produced. And if universities aren’t going to stand up to the publishers and distributors, it’s up to the faculty members to call for a stop to this practice, by encouraging the use of cheaper books, used books, older editions, textbook rentals, and the like.

* Yes, I’m so much of a cheapskate that I enjoy being a cheapskate for other people’s benefit.

** Okay, he doesn’t say that he’s poor and starving. But if you don’t like the money, quit writing textbooks!

*** Not me. I have shelf after shelf of old textbooks, some of which I use more than others. Even my parents have shelves of old textbooks lining the living room. But we’re hoarders, if only to a slight degree.

Back in high school I actually enjoyed exam week, crazy as it sounds. Sure the exams weren’t fun, but I’d get afternoons off and get a chance to take a nap, play some video games, listen to some CDs (back in the day when you didn’t keep all your music on your computer or iPod), and relax. The exams were an hour, maybe an hour and a half. And there weren’t many papers to write. And my mother would usually bring me some fast food for lunch, maybe a roast beef po-boy from Shortstop.

But in college, it’s all different. Exams may take two or three hours, sometimes even four. (I never had any that long, but I’ve heard horror stories.) Maybe in math and the sciences this is justifiable, but there’s really nothing you can tell from a four-hour humanity final that you can’t tell from one that takes ninety minutes. It becomes a marathon instead of an evaluation. (And as a brief aside, the SAT was way too long when I was in high school. I shudder at the thought of what it must be like now with the writing section.) It’s a miserably long, drawn-out process that takes maybe a week and a half or two instead of maybe four days.

Truth be told, the worst thing about exam week in college is the papers. The exams never bothered me that much because I was too lazy to study anyway. But the papers. Ugh. Now, I’m a damn good bullshitter. I can write about as well as anyone, as you have probably deduced from my graceful style, expansive vocabulary, and mastery of the many arcane rules of English grammar (as well as by willingness to break these rules, but only when it serves a suitable artistic purpose).* But writing those papers is still damn hard work most of the time. You actually have to go back and read a bunch of that assigned reading you had spent all semester ignoring. And you have to make some sense of it, which is easier said than done when you’re studying metaphysics or reading Thucydides. And to paraphrase a quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln and P.T. Barnum, but whose provenance is quite uncertain, you can fool some of your professors all of the time, and all of your professors some of the time, but you can’t fool all of your professors all of the time. Especially in grad school. Knowing your shit is a lot harder than cranking out elegant sentences, and there were professors smart enough to see through my veneer of good writing and excessive usage of parentheses and dashes. But not all of them were smart enough to do that, thankfully. And hey, I graduated magna cum laude from undergrad and then got a master’s degree, so I must have learned something, right? Even if what I learned has virtually no use beyond the very tiny field in which I seek to earn a living.**

Now, these papers wouldn’t be all that bad if you actually worked on them more than three days before they’re due, but what are the odds of that? Obviously in an ideal world you have a pretty broad range of topics to choose from, your professor approves your proposal, and you know from halfway through the semester what your paper will be on. But there are tests to take, parties to go to, beers to drink, etc., and the next thing you know it’s 2 a.m. right before the last day of class and your paper is due in eight hours and you haven’t written a damn thing. Procrastination’s a bitch, ain’t it? I pulled so many more all-nighters than I should have.*** I’d just hope I could think of things to say to fill out the page count. That, and I’d hope there would be something good on TV. Maybe a good movie on TCM. I remember one time they had Anchors Aweigh, which is the one where Gene Kelly dances with Jerry (as in the mouse from Tom & Jerry). Great scene (perhaps more familiar to modern audiences in that adult swim commercial where Jerry was replaced by Stewie from Family Guy).

The sad thing is, professors are usually right when they say that if you get your research done and outline what you want to say, papers usually write themselves. I don’t think I really fully appreciated that until my last semester of grad school, which is ironic in an Alanis Morissette sort of way. The problem is that that method involves doing a shitload of reading. So while it’s less stressful if you get it done ahead of time, it’s much more time-consuming, and laziness usually triumphs, especially in some class where you don’t give a shit, or you know you can get a B+ anyway even if you just muck through the final paper.

And it’s not just the papers, it’s the exams too. If it were just one or the other, it would be semi-manageable, but it’s not. Especially when professors make the final paper due the same day as the final. So you can’t study because you’re too busy writing the paper you should have already written. Brutal. I’m teaching a mythology class next semester and I’m making damn sure to make the final paper due on the last day of class, not the day of the final. Which, from a purely rational perspective, actually gives them less time to get things done, but I know how undergrads think. And I know they’re not going to study if they have a paper due the same day as the final. Having been on both sides of the issue, I completely understand when professors say “You had all semester to write your paper,” but I’m a realist. There’s no need to make things like that due on the same day.

There, that’s enough procrastinating. Go write and study now. And get off facebook. That thing is your enemy this time of year. And quit checking your e-mail. No one is going to e-mail you at 3 in the morning. You’re just stalling.

* Okay, I do make grammar mistakes, but only on things that aren’t important enough for me to care about. (Which is a perfect defense against any attacks.) And hardly anyone reads this, anyway. Trust me, I know if you’re reading this. With google analytics I’m like motherfucking Santa Claus. Okay, I can’t actually see you when you’re sleeping, but the amount of info at my fingertips is pretty stunning. So don’t ever lie to me about reading this blog in an attempt to be polite. I mean, I’m sure some people block google analytics, and I can’t say I blame them, but for my sake, I really do like the pretty map I get to look at telling me where my readers are from, and I’m kind of measuring my worth as a human being by the number of states and countries I’m crossing off the list. So far I’ve managed four continents, thanks to the joys of search engines. But only 23 states. Unfortunately this blog isn’t really well-suited for SEO unless someone types in the title of one of my blog posts. But I digress.

** I bitch about my underemployment but the hourly wage I make is pretty damn sick. (And that’s “sick” in a good way, just to be clear.) I could end up making about two-thirds of what I might be making with a full-time teaching job while doing only about one-sixth the work. Not too shabby. And how would I find time for this blog otherwise?

*** Actually, I usually went to bed from about 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., so they weren’t really all-nighters. But close enough.

“We question the ability of anyone to prove that a student with a 4.0 GPA needs special education services because his educational performance is significantly affected.”

This is galling on so many levels. First of all, many gifted students don’t have a 4.0 GPA because they’re bored out of their mind in class and have no interest in material that is far beneath them. Secondly, if a student could be learning much more advanced material but is instead stuck covering subjects far below his intellectual level, his educational performance is being “significantly affected.” Sure, 99th percentile standardized test scores may look good and pull up the average for everyone else, but they really mean a student isn’t being challenged enough. A student like this may “perform” well, but his time is being wasted and he’s not allowed to reach his potential.

The article has a great deal of personal significance for me; it even mentions my elementary school (where I went from kindergarten through fifth grade) and its GT teacher. We were pulled out from our normal classes once a day; we’d usually miss each subject once a week. It was a really great program, and the Catholic elementary school I attended for sixth and seventh grade had nothing of the sort, which was very disappointing. **

This specific article is really just a small example of the ways in which the American educational system ignores and fails the brightest students. Consider this quote from a 2007 Time magazine article: “American schools spend more than $8 billion a year educating the mentally retarded. Spending on the gifted isn’t even tabulated in some states, but by the most generous calculation, we spend no more than $800 million on gifted programs.” Ten times as much on the retarded as on the gifted! How can this make sense? The two groups are roughly similar in size, and yet one group gets astronomically more funding.

Consider this essay from the mother of an autistic son and a gifted daughter. She describes how her son has an aide beside him when he is in a regular classroom, and spends most of his time in a group of two to six children led by a specialist. The mother is immensely grateful for the amount of time specially-trained adults spend teaching her son and developing strategies to help him learn. Meanwhile, the daughter gets just three hours a week of gifted education, with a teacher who scolds her for “‘making things confusing for everyone else.’” The woman does not explain how she heard that quote, so I’m inclined to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt; nevertheless, there are surely a great many teachers who are ill-equipped or disinclined to deal with gifted students. This mother asks us to consider the stakes involved:

“Most parents of autistic children describe goals for their kids in…modest terms: being able to bathe themselves, get a job, or live semi-independently. My daughter has the potential for much more. If she were given even a fraction of the customized education that my son receives, she could learn the skills needed to prevent the next worldwide flu pandemic, or invent a new form of nonpolluting transportation. Perhaps she could even discover a cure for autism.”

Think about that. For some of the disabled, the most they can hope for is a minimum wage job and a barely independent life. But a gifted student could figure out a way to stop global warming, develop a new way to put people on Mars, cure cancer, write the great American novel, compose a magnificent symphony…the list goes on. But clearly, the heights our brightest children can reach make them deserving of far more support and money than they currently receive.

Sometimes it’s not even a matter of money. Grade-skipping and other forms of acceleration can be very beneficial, without requiring extra expenditures.*** The report A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students does a great job of examining many of the issues involved, and the benefits for students and schools that result from acceleration.

No Child Left Behind has also harmed gifted students, with its overwhelming emphasis on bringing bad students up to mediocrity. Unfortunately this often comes at the expense of the gifted. The Time article mentions cuts by Illinois, Michigan, and the federal government, and this New York Times article mentions similar cuts in New Jersey, and the nationwide decline in services for gifted students. NCLB is stupid on dozens of levels, but the focus on bringing the worst up to mediocrity is absurd. Yes, it’s important that everyone can read and do math at basic levels. But linking funding to this is stupid. Consider this extreme scenario: a school where 100% of students meet the minimum requirements is “better” than a school where 10% of the kids fail and 90% get perfect scores. Of course, that’s a hyperbolic hypothetical, but it’s obvious that it’s a silly metric for measuring performance. But the funding system encourages–no, demands–that schools focus on the worst students and give short shrift to the rest. We should all be outraged by this.

*I have no idea who this group is; they don’t even have a website. I’d guess they’re a bunch of extremist advocates for the mentally and physically retarded who want to keep all the tax dollars for “their” students and take it away from gifted students.

**My high school’s curriculum was rigorous enough, and there were enough extracurriculars like quiz bowl, Academic Games, honor societies, etc. that it wasn’t really necessary. But I have no doubt that gifted students at most high schools would benefit tremendously from programs developed to suit their talents and needs.

***In the interests of full disclosure I should mention that I skipped third grade, and prior to that I took advanced math classes. I like to think I turned out okay.