City Schools Crippled By Lack of New Books

By Linda Borg; Sharon Contreras

PROVIDENCE — Classical High School is considered the jewel in the district’s secondary school crown, yet many of its textbooks haven’t been replaced in 12 to 15 years.

Not only are the books worn and dog-eared, teachers say that some books are missing information critical to a contemporary understanding of history and literature.

At Classical, there are four different editions of the same English anthology, which means that students are literally not on the same page.

“If you’re reading American literature,” said Ellen Andersen, an English teacher, “you have to read up until 1930 to reach a black author. That’s sad.”

Awwad Mohammad, a math teacher, has an entire shelf of geometry books that he says he can’t use because they are riddled with typographical errors. He says it is not unusual to spend several hours a week gluing and taping damaged books together.

In an era of shrinking budgets, principals have to play Solomon, deciding who will get new textbooks and who won’t. Classical Principal Cheryl Gomes said she receives 60 percent less in so- called discretionary spending, which covers textbooks, than she did seven years ago. Meanwhile, the cost of textbooks has skyrocketed, with books running between $75 and $100 apiece.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” Gomes said. “Sometimes, I want to hide in my office.”

Classical High School has traditionally been considered the one public high school in the city where students can get a private- school education for a public-school price. It is the only school where students must pass an exam to gain admission. Between 95 percent and 98 percent of their seniors go on to four-year colleges.

Yet both students and staff are hamstrung by textbooks that, in many cases, are old, outdated and inadequate. And Classical is hardly alone. Across the district, high schools are grappling with the same problem.

“We offer so much more than the core curriculum,” Gomes said. “We offer five foreign languages at five levels. We offer 19 or 20 Advanced Placement classes and every class needs new textbooks.”

The issue is not simply a lack of resources to pay for textbook replacements, however. Even more critical is the fact that the district doesn’t have a policy on textbook adoption, according to Sharon Contreras, the School Department’s chief academic officer.

“We’ve never formally adopted a textbook series at any level,” she said this week. “It’s unusual. Most districts have a formal textbook adoption process. They have a school board policy and there’s a textbook adoption cycle in the range of every five years.”

In Providence, each high school decides how much to spend on textbooks, which is taken out of the discretionary spending budget. Principals, Contreras said, have tremendous discretion over textbook purchases, which makes it hard for the central office to track which books are being replaced and when.

“A critical concern is that every school is not teaching the same subject matter,” Contreras said. “Each high school has their own standards for what students should know and do.”

Contreras has been pushing for a uniform high school curriculum since her arrival. This summer, she said that the department will begin to develop uniform curricula in the four major subjects: English, math, social studies and science.

She said that the current system also leads to inequities among schools, with some high schools getting updated textbooks while others don’t. The School Board recently introduced a system that will allow the district to conduct an electronic inventory of all of its textbooks to help determine where the inadequacies are.

According to department heads at Classical, it’s not that textbooks contain information that is wrong, it’s that they are missing information that is relevant. In the latest U.S. history books, history is told from multiple points of views and includes the perspectives of the vanquished as well as the victors.

“Our anthologies from the late 1980s are missing the multicultural dimension,” said Andersen, the English department chairwoman. “We don’t have a unified text that addresses plagiarism and Internet sourcing.”

In foreign languages, Classical adopted a new Spanish textbook about three years ago, but the department is still waiting for the money to purchase upper-level versions of the book.

Textbooks are the bedrock for any course, and they are especially important for new teachers, who may not have the experience to shape their syllabus from outside materials. The latest textbooks also come with lots of bells and whistles, including CDs, DVDs and Internet resources, which provide a more complete instructional package, but also adds to their cost.

In some classes, there aren’t enough books for every student. Social studies chairman Arthur Rustigian said one of his teachers had to use three different editions because there weren’t enough books to go around.

And it looks like the budget for textbooks won’t get any better. This year, the School Department set aside $445,000 for textbook acquisition; the district earmarked $357,000 in 2006-2007. For the coming fiscal year, the department has budgeted $417,000.

“We give the schools an amount per student,” said Chief Financial Officer Mark Dunham. “The money we give the schools is to replace textbooks they already have. A new adoption might cost $10 million.”

Dunham said that the last major textbook replacement occurred 10 years ago and said that the district adopted new books one grade at a time.

“By the time you’re done,” he said, “you’re ready to start all over again.”

“We’ve never formally adopted a textbook series at any level,” she said this week. “It’s unusual. Most districts have a formal textbook adoption process. They have a school board policy and there’s a textbook adoption cycle in the range of every five years.”

Originally published by Linda Borg, Journal Staff Writer.

(c) 2008 Providence Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.