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Re: The Textbook Monopoly

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Let's start with the very first chapter of the author's textbook
considered the number one textbook on Relativity...

"General relativity is an elegant and powerful theory, but it is also a
strange one.
 According to Einstein, the phenomenon we usually think of as the force
of gravity is really not a force at all, but 
rather a byproduct of the curvature of spacetime. 
Although. we have become accustomed to this idea over time, it is still
a peculiar notion, ..."


"a strange one"??? meaning weird, funny, freakish, wako, screwy, kooky,
backasswards, etc.


"a peculiar notion"????  meaning bizarre, erie, flaky, freakish, funny,
odd, etc.



The top Relativity textbook is considered by it;s own author to
be...backasswards!



ass-backwards.





I would say there is a lot of back ass ward thinking here...



but if you get your science from someone suffering with autism..
it's like Steve Jobs on acid!

Take some LSD and of course the whole planet and universe...curves!!!!

Take some LDS and look at the floor...watch it curve.


When you get your information from someone who is fucked up in the
head...


You want to learn Relativity? Just drop some acid.






Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain

Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies

Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers

That grow so incredibly high

Newspaper taxis appear on the shore

Waiting to take you away

Climb in the back with your head in the clouds

And you're gone

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Ah

Picture yourself on a train in a station

With plasticine porters with looking glass ties ....






The Starmaker wrote:
> 
> "Some publishers are known to offer thousands of dollars to professors
> and instructors just to review textbooks for potential inclusion in
> their coursework. The same publishers sometimes offer commissions on
> textbooks sold or (in what is almost outright bribery) offer kickbacks
> to professors for textbook adoption (Bartlett)."
> 
> The Textbook Monopoly in American Education
> Control over educational policy in the United States is split between
> the federal, state, and local levels of government, which, under the
> direction of their respective constituents, are tasked with defining a
> system of educational standards that codify what students under their
> jurisdiction ought to learn. Schools then implement curriculum in
> response to the combination of standards specific to their region, often
> in conjunction with the use of privately-produced textbooks. Over time,
> unfortunately, the efficacy of this system has diminished severely as a
> handful of companies have wrested control over the majority of the
> textbook industry. As of 2013, just three textbook publishing
> conglomerates - Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill Education, and
> Pearson - assert control over "more than 80% of the $8.8 billion
> publishing market" internationally (Vohra 9). At surface level, the hold
> of these companies on the textbook industry is like any other classic
> monopoly, with drastically increased prices and comparably-reduced
> competition. Upon inspection, however, it can be shown that this
> oligopoly-nearing-monopoly held by the companies aforementioned has
> deeper repercussions, having, over the last several decades, transformed
> an effective private-public partnership into a nefarious machine that
> serves to inflict disastrous consequences on the potency of democracy in
> education in ways that supersede the democratic process and shift the
> ideological battle over what America’s youth are taught from Congress to
> the classroom. By almost every metric, the textbook monopoly has
> Lao 2
> demonstrated itself to be both financially and academically detrimental
> to students and citizens alike.
> Like any other monopoly, the most immediately-visible disadvantages of
> the textbook monopoly are financial in nature, manifesting most
> conspicuously in increased prices. According to the American Enterprise
> Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy think tank, textbook
> prices have increased 812% since 1978, outstripping inflation of the
> cost of medical services, new home prices, and the consumer price index
> in the same time period (Priceonomics). College students, who often need
> to buy textbooks themselves in addition to tuition, housing, and
> university costs, are generally hit the hardest by increasing textbook
> prices. Per the College Board, “the average student at a four-year
> public institution spends $1,200 annually on books and supplies” (Allen
> 1). This figure adds significant burden to the current average annual
> cost of attending a public four-year institution of almost $15,000 (Ma
> et al. 11, 20). Textbook prices are already hefty for a number of
> reasons, including a monopolistic lack of competition in the industry,
> reseller markup, and author’s royalties. None of these factors, however,
> are quite as impactful as the funds spent on marketing the textbooks:
> enabled by increased revenues from textbook sales, a worrying amount of
> publishers engage in ethically-questionable textbook marketing practices
> with professors that hurt students the most. Some publishers are known
> to offer thousands of dollars to professors and instructors just to
> review textbooks for potential inclusion in their coursework. The same
> publishers sometimes offer commissions on textbooks sold or (in what is
> almost outright bribery) offer kickbacks to professors for textbook
> adoption (Bartlett). While these deals can be lucrative to professors
> faced with inadequate salaries, they can be especially detrimental to
> students, who are forced to purchase said textbooks at the inflated
> price in order to pass (and in some cases, even participate in) the
> class. To capitalize on
> Lao 3
> textbook purchase lock-in, publishers resort to tactics such as textbook
> revision: many publishers release new ‘revised’ editions of existing
> textbooks every 2-4 years, marketing the ‘revamped’ books as new then
> selling them at same or greater prices (Priceonomics). While these
> updated versions can include new content, many textbooks, especially
> those written on mathematics and other technical subjects which do not
> warrant frequent revision, are updated solely for the purpose of
> revenue. In the same vein, publishers push web-based homework submission
> applications to professors (a theoretically beneficial proposal), but
> take advantage of students by requiring a special online code to access
> the application, often sold at unreasonable prices or only bundled with
> a physical textbook. With the increased revenues from textbook sales to
> students who have no choice in purchasing their goods as a result of
> such tactics, textbook publishers are able to better fund their
> unethical textbook-marketing practices.
> These anti-student behaviors are made possible by the sheer magnitude of
> influence textbook publishers such as Pearson have over American
> education. While it operates internationally, Pearson finds most of its
> business in the West, with the North American market accounting for 59%
> of the company’s revenues and 66% of its total profits (Rushton). The
> conglomerate has business in the composition and publication of
> textbooks and the creation, distribution, and grading of teacher
> qualifications, student exams, and standardized tests - in fact, the
> British company is thought to control approximately 60% of all North
> American standardized testing (Reingold). The corporation also played an
> instrumental role in the development of curriculum for and the
> implementation of the vastly-controversial Common Core education
> standards, especially in elementary schools (Rushton). The oligopoly
> over and general privatization of American education that companies such
> as Pearson have achieved has created a single point of failure that has
> allowed certain parties to exert a disproportionate amount of
> Lao 4
> influence over what American students are actually taught, in ways that
> are detrimental to presenting a well-rounded and unbiased worldview in
> the national classroom.
> In a nation that has become increasingly polarized over the last
> decades, the ideological battle for what content and worldview is taught
> in the classroom has become even more significant, especially in regards
> to religion. This disagreement has historically been resolved within the
> government: conservative states tend to pass legislation requiring the
> inclusion of religion-supported perspectives in science and history
> teachings in addition to federal education standards, while liberal
> states tend to act in the opposite. The result of this process is a
> common core (no pun intended) of educational standards defined at the
> federal level, with some adjustments at the state and local levels - a
> victory for democracy and dual federalism. The textbook monopoly,
> however, has undermined the efficacy of this process: while
> textbook-publishing companies were previously able to assemble a single
> textbook version that would be admissible and marketable in all fifty
> states by catering to national standards, this is no longer exactly the
> case. Because of the actions of a select group of regulators, textbook
> publishers are now forced to consider a different lowest common
> denominator in terms of educational standards; a change that undermines
> the system of our government and shifts the ideological battle of what
> is taught to our nation’s youth - arguably the most intellectually
> vulnerable demographic of our population - from public politics to
> private industry.
> This threat to American students is most strongly exemplified in the
> actions of the Texas State Board of Education. A unit of the Texas
> Education Agency, the Board is responsible for setting curriculum
> standards for the state, effectively dictating what content is
> permissible for instruction in every Texas public school. For most of
> the last couple decades, the state’s populace has chosen to elect (in
> the words of former chair Don McLeroy) “solid religious
> Lao 5
> conservatives” to the fourteen-member State Board of Education (fifteen,
> including the appointed chair) (Chancey 325). In their tenure, this
> majority has acted to ensure that their view of “true American history”
> is taught in schools by emphasizing the link between the ideology of the
> Founding Fathers and Christianity and asserting that the country was
> “built on biblical principles” (Chancey 325-326). On one hand, some
> organizations and citizens (including the Texas Christian Coalition and
> Chuck Norris) have praised these changes for their more-faithful (pun
> intended) representation of the country’s founding. On the other hand,
> Texan educational reform groups on both sides of the spectrum (albeit to
> a much lesser extent on the right) have lambasted the Board’s changes
> for having "heavy-handed religious and ideological bias, historical
> inaccuracy, whitewashing of unappealing aspects of American history,
> [and] inattention to diversity issues” (Chancey 326-327). Regardless of
> one’s opinion on the issue, the Board’s actions are not inherently
> harmful or undemocratic - the members of the State Board of Education
> are elected, and the Board’s influence is only supposed to extend within
> the state; so by all means, whether one agrees or disagrees with the
> Board’s actions, the standards changes should simply be democracy at
> work.
> However, because of the textbook monopoly, the Board’s actions have more
> far-reaching implications than what might initially be apparent. In the
> words of Dr. Mark A. Chancey, a prestigious Duke scholar working as a
> professor of religious studies at the Southern Methodist University in
> Dallas, the Board’s changes to standards would “likely find its way into
> [textbooks] adopted across the country” considering the fact that
> textbook “publishers must develop textbooks that cohere with the Texas
> standards” in addition to those of the federal government and the other
> 49 states (Chancey 326). This possibility is especially likely given
> Texas’s relationship with textbook publishers: the Lone Star State’s
> deals with textbook
> Lao 6
> publishers amount to hundreds of millions of dollars (Rushton). Because
> of the reduced amount of textbook publishers in the North American
> market, and the relatedly reduced competition and amount of textbooks
> published in the region, textbooks published in the present day bear the
> increasing risk of presenting information that is not representative of
> the decisions and values of local governments. In a jarring upset to
> dual federalism, the undue influence that the textbook industry has
> (advertently or inadvertently) been allowed to wield has created an
> environment detrimental not only to academia, or only Texas, but to the
> country as a whole — the existence of which has become increasingly
> apparent. A scholarly review funded by watchdog and activist group Texas
> Freedom Network of 43 proposed history, geography, and government
> textbooks written in accordance with Texas education standards for
> grades 6-12 found that several of the proposed textbooks contained
> arguably misrepresentative portrayals of American government and
> history, including exaggerations of the "Judeo-Christian influence on
> the nation's founding," biased statements "inappropriately [portraying]
> Islam and Muslims negatively," failure to address "legitimate problems
> that exist in capitalism," and inclusion of potentially offensive
> "anthropological categories and racial terminology in describing African
> civilization" (Strauss 1). Regardless of whether or not such
> representations are accurate, it is clear that the Texas State Board of
> Education, as a result of the textbook monopoly, now possesses an
> unprecedented ability to influence national academic policy. It is clear
> that any organization, not just the Texas State Board of Education, with
> a sufficient stake in the private textbook publishing industry, can
> informally bypass the checks and balances underpinning our democratic
> determination of educational standards. It is clear that because of the
> textbook monopoly’s ability to shift the ideological battleground of
> educational standards from the public sector to the private sector,
> America’s system of education is now more than ever susceptible to
> abuse.
> Lao 7
> Like any other monopoly, the textbook monopoly creates an
> anti-competitive market characterized by increasing prices and
> diminishing quality, the success of which perpetuates the monopoly,
> posing pertinent financial consequences for all consumers, especially
> students. Unlike a typical monopoly, however, this particular
> near-monopoly exercises a unique capacity to shape both the beliefs and
> ideological future of this nation’s students, and by extension, the
> nation itself. The monopoly’s potential for the distortion and
> misrepresentation of the tenets of knowledge undermines the
> decision-making processes embedded in our democratic republic. Rarely
> before has such monumental influence over an area of public concern,
> especially one so imperative to the future and development of the United
> States, been concentrated in the hands of so few.
> 
> --
> The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable,
> to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable,
> and challenge the unchallengeable.

-- 
The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable,
to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable, 
and challenge the unchallengeable.

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The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-25 13:42 -0800
  Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-27 10:53 -0800
    Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-27 18:16 -0600
      Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-27 20:52 -0800
        Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-28 11:22 -0600
          Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-30 11:18 -0800
            Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-30 13:55 -0600
              Re: The Textbook Monopoly bertietaylor@myyahoo.com (Bertietaylor) - 2025-01-31 08:44 +0000
      Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-28 09:37 -0800
        Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-28 11:47 -0600
          Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-29 10:21 -0800
            Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-29 14:22 -0600
              Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-29 13:03 -0800
                Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-29 15:13 -0600
                Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-30 10:45 -0800
                Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-30 12:53 -0600
        Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-31 01:40 -0800
          Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-31 11:34 -0600
            Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-31 10:43 -0800
              Re: The Textbook Monopoly Physfitfreak <physfitfreak@gmail.com> - 2025-01-31 13:06 -0600
                Re: The Textbook Monopoly The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2025-01-31 13:47 -0800

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