MacBrave's Journal: Free public education my ass.......

Here in the great state of Indiana primary and secondary public education is supposedly free (i.e. supported by taxpayers), but the families have to pay for textbook rental,unless you earn below a certain income in which case the fees are reduced or free, another sore issue altogether.

Just got the texbook rental fees for our three sons that are in school. The grades are: high school freshman (9th grade), a 5th grade, and 3rd grade. Total textbook rental fee for all three: $299.69
And this is free public education? Tack on top of that the teacher's school supply list that seems to get longer every year and you are spending a sizeable amount of $.

Do any other states out here require families to pay textbook fees as well? I know when we lived in Michigan and our oldest entered first grade (we moved to IN after his 1st grade year) we didn't pay any texbook fees..........

Hm...

[elmegil]

Didn't have 'em in MO when I was growing up. Haven't heard of them around here in IL yet. Weird stuff.

(this is a rant) When I lived there...

[dexterpexter]

...I had to pay (well, my parents did, anyway) textbook rental fees as well. Moving to other states that did not have them, I now see why.

My brother brought home a textbook last year and I was disgusted to see that his text book for his school in Oklahoma was the same edition of the same book that I had in Indiana. Did I mention that he and I have about 9 years of age difference?) The book was outdated, torn, marked-in...
When people aren't willing to step up and pay more taxes for education, that is what

Now, adding onto this...

[dexterpexter]

...I think school supply lists are stupid. They are far too specific.

I hated that the teacher would ask for a specific type of folder, made a certain way. To me, that list was like the cookie cutter cutting the dough...rigidly shaping things and making it so that, if you baked a little differently than the rest of the cookies, you were either inadequate or came out looking stupid. (Bad analogy, yay!) Worse, we rarely actually used all of the requested supplies, and deviations from the list (a folder w

Dude, here is why:

[Com2Kid]

Do you want your child reading a history book sponsored by Nordstorms? A book that describes third world country's as places where people just "live differently than us"?

No?

Then may I suggest you pay up, because if you do not, that is exactly what the district is going to get. Remember, law requires government to take lowest bidders that can "fulfill the requirements", and Nordstroms literally GIVES away those text books.

(so skinny I would not really call them text books but. . . .)

I did not find out that

Re:Dude, here is why:

[ces]

Do you want your child reading a history book sponsored by Nordstorms? A book that describes third world country's as places where people just "live differently than us"?

Nordstom's is sponsoring textbooks? You are joking right?

I did not find out that the Soviet Union had been disolved until around 1998 or 1999, and it wasn't until a few years AFTER that that I actually saw a text book that had a map with that said "Russia" instead of USSR.

I grew up in the mid 90s reading text books that still talked about t

Re:Dude, here is why:

[Com2Kid]

Nordstom's is sponsoring textbooks? You are joking right?

Oh man I wish I wasn't.

This was back in middle school, so it has been awhile, and as the instructor said "These books are garbage, I don't plan on using them anyways, just as well that they were free."

The other history books we had were really old, the binding was falling off, the books were made in the mid to late 80s I do believe. (This was around 1996 or so)

And the teachers didn't bother to mention subsequent events?

Umm, from what I have gathered,