The San Diego Unified School Board approved a wish list of new textbooks it wants for next school year. With looming budget cuts, it's unclear when the district will have the money to buy them. KPBS reporter Ana Tintocalis has the story.
Most of the new textbooks are for middle and high school students. They range in subjects from photography to physics. School trustees approved the $20 million plan. They also want district officials to phase-in E-books within five years. E-books are online textbooks students access on a computer.
Parent Matt Spathas praised the board for moving in that direction. He says kids today are bored with traditional textbooks.
Spathas: I think we can all relate to one what this device is -- an Etch-A-Sketch. This is what a student feels like when we hand them a book that's not three-dimensional, that's not hyperlinked, that's not real time, that's not video clipped. We need to retool and retrain everybody in a connected world for our kids to be competitive.
School trustees say investing in e-books is better than paying for textbooks that become quickly outdated.
Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.
