I fully agree with godistwaddle… the present-day “education” system is little else than a combo babysitting service/indoctrination program designed to produce cookie-cutter consumers.

But… technology moves on. Other than a little bullying, gossiping, “social interaction,” and perhaps sports, there’s little reason to actually transport all those chubby little bodies in great big expensive orange buses back and forth across the land every damned day. So give ‘em their laptops and internet and “teach” ‘em at home. Works for me!

The parents, of course, would never stand for it… the vast majority of them have as their first priority… GET THE KID(S) OUT OF MY HAIR FROM 8 TO 4 AT LEAST. It’s beyond me why so many decide to even have kids… and it’s for sure this planet doesn’t need them! It costs a fortune to raise them and for most families it’s non-stop WARFARE from age 10 to 20. Who needs it?

lets see, which is better…

Coal is burned to power the computers, servers, data lines and iPods 24/7 and will have to be maintained in order to gain “knowledge.” THen there are all the rare minerals/materials being used up to make all these things that end up in the land fill in three years -vs- cutting down hardwood trees (bleached white paper only comes from slow growing hardwoods), making paper (also pretty bad on the environment) and printing ink on them (which uses electricity too but only once).

Seems like the paper version might have a slightly lower carbon footprint and you can read your book by candle light when the power’s gone.

Sounds like someone has been offered a pile of tech stocks under the table…

As a retired teacher of English (30 years), I can say with conviction: it is the duty of public education in the U.S. to create mindless drones for capitalism.  Lack of books will do this well.

Prices, maybe, but books in general are a last part of information that will last longer than any ‘electronic’ information which, by the way, can be changed or altered by the time a person tries to access that information, IF it hasn’t ‘disappeared’ totally the next time that information is accessed.

Really, just a bit of common sense about this, when power is cut and batteries are drained, what happens to your information?

So arnold is playing right into the ‘ministry of truth’s’ hands.

The problem is the textbook prices, not the textbooks. Doesn’t the Bush family, and others, make a lot of money from textbooks?