Why Isn't There Instructional Parity Among the Schools?

Stefanie has left a new comment on your post "When Textbooks Aren't Ordered For All, What is Use...":

To continue this thread, I'd like to share that I've spoken about the disparity in educational materials used at the elementary schools at several Board of Ed meetings - starting in the spring when I noticed a discrepancy in the budget numbers of schools with lower populations spending more money on textbooks than schools with larger populations. This didn't seem right to me and I eventually got data from the BOE that detailed what was planned for purchase at each elementary school.

I'd like to share more of less what I said at Monday's BOE meeting:

I’d like to once again bring up that the current school budget did not include ELA test prep books for Stratford Road 3rd and 4th graders. All students receive the same Math test prep book and I’m curious why it would be any different for ELA.

I have been told that our schools do things differently. I have repeatedly asked to see what is being used in a side by side comparison to see the equality among the materials used by the different schools and have not been shown anything.

I am not going to be satisfied until I see and have explained to me how the different ELA test prep materials are equitable.

Last spring I raised concerns that materials my child was using for ELA were copyright infringements and was assured this wasn’t the case by the superintendent as well as the building principal.

I brought in examples of 3rd grade ELA materials that were copyright infringements to a previous BOE meeting. ( I brought in over 100 pages of materials that were clearly copyright infringements to the last BOE meeting) What is the resolution of this?

(response by supt that there was a meeting and principals and teachers were told not to do this anymore)

I have recently heard that an entire book was xeroxed for a high school English class. Living author. I find this embarassing and troublesome.

(this got a small reaction and I said I would share the title of the book privately after the meeting so as not to put any teacher on the spot)

(at some point there was a response by supt that they might consider ELA test prep for Stratford for next year's budget - I countered that the ELA workbooks coat about $8 each and for about 200 students the cost is $1600 - not much in a $127+ million dollar budget - and that the ELA workbooks should be purchased for Stratford students this year)

In the event that the decision remains to not provide Stratford students with ELA test prep workbooks, I would like to request that my child be given a copy of the 4th grade ELA test prep book that he would have received had he been a student at Old Beth, Parkway or Pasadena. I believe that this material serves an important purpose and would like my child to have the opportunity to have the same benefit as other children in this district.