Just Following Up...

When I first begin working in a new industry, my habit is to start reading anything and everything I can get my hands on about the business – histories of the big players, industry trends, and as much background information as I can possibly put my hands on. In the course of some internet cruising, I came across this white paper, written by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation:

The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption.

I really wish I could find out more about the origin of this paper, because one early statistic really caught my eye:

"A 2002 survey of elementary and high school teachers found that about 80 percent use textbooks in their classrooms. Nearly half of student class time was spent using textbooks. And those numbers, from a survey sponsored by the National Education Association and the Association of American Publishers, most likely understate teachers’ and students’ true dependence on textbooks. Shadow studies, which track teachers’ activities during the school day, suggest that 80 to 90 percent of classroom and homework assignments are textbook-driven or textbook-centered."

Granted, those numbers are at least 4 years old by now, so things could certainly be different. And I'm sure there's a pretty wide range across all the schools in America, but even if that's a high end of a range, the rest of the range is still pretty high. At first, I couldn't figure out why so much has been made of raising standards and raising students' chances of reaching them, and so little done about what seems like a major part of the process.

But then, I remembered something very important – the government is the consumer.

At my last job, I worked for an ad agency that specialized in military clients. Marketing to the US government, at any level, is one of the most bizarre and arcane processes that I've ever been involved in (including my current job). I still can't imagine how anyone would read one of the marketing pieces we produced and come away with any idea of whether they should buy the product being advertised or not. Add to that the layers of bureaucracy that a company needs to thread its way through in order to even be considered, and it's no wonder that a wrench costs $400. It wouldn't surprise me if that a break-even price.

So what are the odds that anything will ever change for the better? After all, it will always be the government doing the buying.

Hmmmm....