The president of the American Association of University Professors, Cary Nelson, issued a statement today calling the Pennsylvania State Senate’s unanimous passage of the College Textbook Affordability, Accountability, and Accessibility Act “the first dangerous step in restricting academic freedom in textbook selection.” The bill would require faculty members to choose “the least expensive, educationally sound textbooks.” Authority over textbook selection has traditionally belonged to faculty members, although some for-profit institutions save money by having students use a common set of electronic textbooks. Pennsylvania is not the first governmental entity to try to legislate cheaper textbooks. Recent federal and state laws have also confronted the issue.
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The State Senate in Pa. is traditionally dysfunctional and they have no idea what they are doing. I for one will continue to ignore laws like this and choose the books that best work from term to term. Among other things, they ignore the complete lack of connection between price and content, rigor and availability or lack thereof of on-line support mechanisms (for new but not for used texts), etc If they took the time to pass a budget on time they would not waste time on nonsense like this.
And why are our senators spending time on issues like this when there are plenty of significant issues impacting the Commonwealth and people who live here?DWH
As a faculty member at a PASSHE school, I’m actually speechless (commentless?). Not even my usually trustworthy sense of sarcasm is equal to this – maybe tomorrow.
The cost of textbooks is too often unconscionably high, driven by publisher’s needs to maintain an income stream and, I would warrant, authors’ desires to do the same. Over the years, I have observed edition changes that serve no obvious educational ends and do not incorporate new information, but are coupled to a very significant price hike. Am I alone in this observation? At the same time, this legislative mandate appears to be a very blunt instrument applying the same test to the cases just mentioned above and to instances where genuinely new and different information and points of view need to be incorporated into a text lest the students be intellectually burdened with outmoded points of view and yesterday’s facts. It is in this second set of cases that academic freedom suffers, especially when touchy, hot button issues arise. All but the most callous faculty members are or should be aware of the financial burden textbooks represent. Good sense and fiscal prudence should be joined to a realistic and empathetic sense of the position of student finances when faculty choose textbooks. I wish I knew how to legislate good sense. It does not appear the Pennsylvania State Senate has found that golden mean.
From the movie 1776, John Adams speaking:A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I’d accept with some despair. But no, You sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?
#4 is certainly correct, but there is one more problem. Example:A student pays $190 for a textbook in AmericaA student pays $30 for the exact same textbook in a foreign country.Why does America have to subsidize every country on the planet. The same is true for prescriptions.A patient pays $7.00 for one pill in AmericaA patient pays .23 cents for the exact same pill in a foreign country.I am not making up any of these numbers. Who is paying the price difference?
No 6, what if the truer cost is reflected in the “foreign” price and the cost in the United States reflects the use of the police power of the government to subsidize Corporate America?
” Over the years, I have observed edition changes that serve no obvious educational ends and do not incorporate new information, but are coupled to a very significant price hike. Am I alone in this observation?”No, you aren’t. In my discipline, there’s a no\ew edition for many texts every 3 years. Most often, with little change except a new cover. Why? Simple. It’s an attempt on the part of the publishers to kill, or at least weaken, the used book market as much as possible.
I believe that every one is missing a major stakeholder that has “played the game”. AAUP, rather than voicing a concern, should talk and reflect more about who they lobbied and the results. The reason being, the PA State Senators (who had apparently nothing else to do more in terms of important work), should have blasted the textbook publishers. However, the Senators did not bring forth any measure to prevent price gauging or even change of textbook edition every three years. To the very least, PA (public academic institutions) which is strong enough to have mandated that any textbook publishers who wish to do business thier state would provide textbook edition for 6 years as truly there are no changes between some edition.But apparently, the Senators were lobbied well form the publishers so guess who they targeted: institutions.Lobbying at its worst!Raza_____________________________Raza Khan, Ph.D., P.D.SciencesCarroll Community CollegeWestminster, MD
Methinks the professors protest too much.If two textbooks are equally educationally sound, what is wrong in picking the less expensive textbook? Yes, Professors will have to work a little harder in researching textbooks but they should be doing that any way to make sure they are not currently teaching from a textbook that is of low quality (i.e. not educationally sound).Too many professors choose a textbook based on personal ties to the author (including sometimes being a author themselves) and directly and indirectly profit at the cost of their students.Not picking the least expensive educationally sound textbook is morally and ethically WRONG!!!!
The book publishers will lower prices when they can spread their fixed costs over more units(books). The publisher needs to recover their costs not only from new books, but from used books too. If they could get royalties from used books they could reduce the price of new books! The author’s are not making much for their labor. They only recieve 10 to 15% of the price of the book.The book is a small price to pay for a class.It costs about $4 per class period. This is a small price to pay to have the “experts” in a class everyday.
#4, You said it best. It’s almost impossible to legislate good sense. I’m certainly sympathetic to the rising cost of textbooks and the frequent edition changes. I was a psychology major as an undergrad, and psychology is infamous for new editions each year. However, when possible, I benefitted from faculty members who allowed mixed editions in the same course. For example, one faculty member allowed us to use last year’s stats text if we couldn’t afford the new one. The page numbers were slightly different, but it didn’t make much difference in terms of content.
What must be brought into the conversation is the fact that the bill’s sponsoring State Senator is indeed a faculty member himself at one of PA’s state system institutions (my own), and was a faculty member long before he was a state sentator. I do believe that his motives are honorable in that he has always been an advocate for the student. A more thorough review of the bill should occur before judgement is rendered…the article which spawned this thread is somewhat general and lacking in details about the bill.
Our legislature could make better use of their time by actually working on the budget, rather than this nonsense. We haven’t had an on-time budget for the better part of a decade.
Sanjay– and what make you the expert in deciding that textbooks are equally and educationally sound? How would you know? I am often appalled by the cost of textbooks, and for the most part, do not use them. But this growing tendency for state legislatures to regulate and legislate education is dangerous to say the least. All one has to do is look at Texas and its adoption of right-wing dribble calling themselves textbooks and the religious right that confuses evolution with educational devolution, and it becomes obvious that we have a problem on our hands. Universities must band together to reject and organize against this kind of ignorant legislating, and pay more attention to what is necessary in educating the public on the role of education in a free society. They can start with courses on “democracy,”as our politicians are more and more advocating the kind of regulation that existed in Eastern Europe before the Wall came down. It this what our bargain-hunters want?