California is in trouble, that much is plain. The state is facing a more than $24 billion budget deficit, and lawmakers have been tossing around a number of extreme measures to meet it. Close 220 of the state's 279 state parks. Release prison inmates early. But the most recent suggestion, from California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, may be the least practical: replace all school textbooks with digital ones.
Schwarzenegger announced his plan earlier this week, writing in the San Jose Mercury News:
"Today, our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones. … So why are California's public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
Listening to Schwarzenegger, it would seem that burdensome backpacks are the reason California's public schools are underfinanced and only 22% of its 8th graders are proficient in reading. What's problematic about the governor's proposal isn't his premise that digital learning tools have a place in schools, but rather his attitude, which casts him as woefully out of touch with classroom realities.
Schwarzenegger argues that it costs the state $350m a year to update instructional materials, and that going electronic will be less expensive in the long run. While this may be true, in context of the present budget crisis, purchasing digital curriculum and the technology to access it for the more than 6.4 million public school students in California hardly sounds like an effective cost-saving measure, particularly when there are concerns among some educators that ebooks aren't necessarily better learning tools. If the governor's primary concern is cost, simply waiting a few years to replace existing books would be a less-expensive solution.
His lack of specifics about implementing this massive plan is also worrisome. The new technology will need to be purchased, distributed and maintained. California's teachers and students will need to be trained how to use it. Curriculums will need to be rewritten and new assessments designed. None of this will be quick or easy, yet Schwarzenegger suggests rolling out the digital curriculum starting this fall.
Despite the feel-good picture Schwarzenegger paints of a totally wired generation, accessing online textbooks at home could also prove difficult for the thousands of low-income students who lack computers or internet access. Kristina Fierro, a high school teacher in Bakersfield, told the Guardian: "I would say out of a class of 30, maybe 10 or less ... have a computer at home." There is also technological disparity between school districts and individual campuses. Without more details about how the state plans to address these gaps in resources, California's teachers are right to be wary.
American schools are in need of curriculum reform, certainly. Textbooks companies cram books with extraneous material in order to meet the varying academic standards of different states, making them more difficult to use effectively. And books are often packaged with expensive supplemental resources.
Streamlining curriculum and developing national standards in subjects like English and math could partially address these concerns, and moving some student learning online isn't a bad idea. Online curriculum is more easily updated and customizable, and digital literacy is an increasingly important skill, especially for under-privileged students who may not have access to certain technology outside of school.
But in this case, electronic textbooks are a distraction, not a silver bullet. They won't solve California's budget or educational troubles, and Schwarzenegger is wrong to call for them to replace traditional textbooks entirely.