The text book industry has been a scam for decades.””
This is mostly driven by the Teacher’s and School Boards.
They keep changing the contents—such as a whole paragraph on the Civil War, and 2 chapters on Martin Luther King.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using textbooks. Some kids read fast- others absorb slower. I predict that many kids will get left behind in this shuffle.
I know people who do the prep work for text books- They are on a dealine that Cannot be changed, yet the school boards/teachers keep demanding changes right up to the last minute and days later. Their company then has to work overtime/24 hrs a day to get everything done on time, which then goes to the printers and bindery businesses, which puts pressure of time on everyone. Then the truck freight becomes air freight.
The text books could be used for a great number of years, but it runs in the same vein of thinking that the garbage truck driver slams and bangs your trash cans so they get replaced more often.
Then there is the last minute change within a school board that leaves the new books UNUSED-—and sent -—BRAND NEW to the landfill.
I am not making that last bit up-—not in the least. Ask the janitors in your local schools.
I’ve seen the unused book dump. It’s kind of pathetic. There’s so many people at fault in the whole industry. Of course this gets us to the other punchline, getting away from physical texts will only get rid of a small portion of the problem. The teacher/ school board demands will remain, the constant pushing of pointless new editions will remain, unused PDFs will continue to be dumped in vast quantities.