Textbooks

Sipping a cup of coffee in the Los Angeles courthouse where he is on trial for fraud, math teacher Matthias Vheru said all he wanted to do was write the best algebra book possible to help his students and those of his colleagues. "I spent my life trying to help underachieving kids," said Vheru, wearing a tie with a mathematical equation that read: 2 teach is 2 touch life 4 ever. "I'm just trying to make the language of math easy to understand."

A federal advisory panel studying the high cost of college texts was offered a simple suggestion Monday for keeping down expenses: Don't use so many books. Or, at least, not books in the conventional sense. The idea is to prod professors to develop more courses that take advantage of articles, lecture notes, study guides and other materials available for free on the Internet.

The high price of college textbooks is a hot issue, not just among disgruntled students weary of spending more than $100 on an economics or a chemistry tome. In Sacramento political circles, efforts to lower those costs have produced two pieces of legislation that are competing for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature.

Aiming for compromise in a furor over the portrayal of Hinduism and ancient India in sixth-grade history books, a subcommittee recommended Monday that the California Board of Education adopt several changes to the text but acknowledged that neither side in the heated debate was likely to be satisfied.

A divided state Board of Education on Monday adopted far-reaching new guidelines for reading and English language arts textbooks aimed at California's elementary and middle school students, despite objections that the materials do not do enough to help students struggling to learn English.

A state Assembly budget panel moved Tuesday to strip funding from the state Board of Education and to allow school districts broader discretion in buying textbooks for students. The action, led by the Assembly's caucus of Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander and African American legislators, comes a day after a divided board voted to adopt new textbook guidelines for elementary and middle schools that detractors contend are ineffective for students who speak little or no English.

Saying more role models could help reduce the social estrangement and high suicide rates of gay and lesbian students, the state Senate voted Thursday to require that the historical contributions of homosexuals in the United States be taught in California schools. Apparently the first of its kind nationwide, the measure passed with no Republican support. It must also be approved by the Assembly and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken no position on it.

Facing a certain veto, state lawmakers have abandoned their effort to require that textbooks in California schools detail the history and achievements of gays and lesbians in America. Supporters removed that provision of the gay rights bill, which passed the California Senate in May, so that the measure only bars teaching anything that "reflects adversely" on people because of their sexual orientation. Schools would also be prohibited from sponsoring any activities that sanction such a bias.

A public demotion is rarely the best thing for one's bank account. But enough about Tom Cruise. For Pluto, the object formerly known as a planet, bad news might be good for earthbound purveyors of products bearing its image or name. Its takedown last week could provide a heavenly boost to textbook publishers, celestial cartographers, astronomical groups and even an eponymous group of eateries.

Glendale teacher Rebecca Quintero spent a recent morning encouraging her fourth-graders to write about the joys of summer for an English assignment. But some of her Spanish, Armenian, Korean and Tagalog speakers were confused at how to begin and their textbook offered limited guidance. What Quintero needed, she said, was a fourth-grade book that would support students with varying degrees of English proficiency.