EdVANTAGE Blog

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a pair of articles on two mainstays of public schools — buses and textbooks — which are becoming less common.

In “Big, Yellow and Ripe for Budget Cuts,” the Times reports on districts in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey that are cutting back on school transportation.  It also notes that nationally, that daily school bus ridership dropped by about 5 percent last year, reaching its lowest level in more than a decade.

The article also notes that three New York districts were unable to adopt transportation cutbacks due to parental opposition.

A proposal that could have saved one district $1.1 million by doubling the minimum travel distance to receive school transportation was rejected by voters by a three to one margin.

A 1990s state law allowed districts to make transportation inside the standard mileage limits a contingent expense if approved by voters.  This allowed districts to fund transportation for shorter distances than otherwise authorized even if voters rejected that year’s proposed school budget.

The law has been interpreted to prevent school boards from from pushing the mileage limits back out, unless they can gain approval from voters for the change.

The article does not touch on another cost saving strategy — providing transportation on a regional basis.  For example, Nassau county districts are developing a system which would shift transportation of nonpublic school students (who often attend school outside their home district) to a regional operation.

Another article, “In a Digital Future, Textbooks are History,” the Times reports on speculation that hard copy textbooks will be displaced digital versions.

It notes that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenengger has proposed replacing some high school textbooks with free, “open source” digital versions.  It quotes one California superintendent, “In five years, I think a majority of students will be using digital textbooks.  they can be better than traditional textbooks.”  Also, “We’re still a brick-and-mortar 30 students to 1 teacher paradigm, but we need to get out of that framework to having 200 or 300 kids taking courses online, at night 24/7, whenever they want.”  he goes onto say that he doesn’t believe that vouchers and charter schools are not the real threat to traditional public schools, online learning is.

Other sources note that the “digital divide” is an obstacle — large numbers of low income families do not own home computers and printing out digital textbooks would cost too much.

Still, since California practices heavily influence the nationwide textbook industry, its experiment will be watched closely.

During the 1970s and 1980s, New York State created discrete categorical programs to aid districts in purchasing various forms of instructional materials, including textbooks, computer hardware and computer software.  But with the passage of time, distinctions between those commodities have become blurred.

Now the Council is working with other education groups to develop proposed legislation to give districts more flexibility in using state aid for textbooks, computer hardware and computer software, to allow schools to use the sum of the three aids to purchase any combination of the three commodities they need each year.