Dive Brief:
- Students at Maspeth High School in Queens, NY, where 69% of the student body is considered to be low-income, are required to use specific editions of books for English and other classes that are sold by the school itself.
- Prices for the books range from around $2 to upwards of $10, and students told the New York Post that they spend $25-50 annually on required reading.
- The practice is reportedly illegal, as state education law in New York mandates that public schools purchase and loan required books to all students at no cost.
Dive Insight:
It's not clear how much profit, if any, is being made by Maspeth High School, and New York City Department of Education spokeswoman Devora Kaye declined to comment to the New York Post.
Of interest to districts is the ongoing rise in the cost of textbooks. Prices have risen an estimated 82% in the last 10 years alone. One way around the problem for all necessary texts is an increased reliance on cheaper e-books or open-source texts, a solution previously promoted by Sens. Al Franken (D-MN) and Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Earlier this year, the New York City Department of Education put the brakes on a pending $30 million deal with Amazon.com that would have had the tech giant build an online marketplace called a "storefront" for classroom-aligned e-books and content. The pause on the deal reportedly came from a lack of attention to how visually disabled students would access the electronic texts.