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is it legal?(california college system)
Bendery It Like Beckham
HopelessRegistered User regular
HopelessRegistered User regular
I'm taking a summer English class right now, and apparently the teacher has decided that those who do not own the book; which has the price of $80, will be marked down in class for not participating. When I asked him about sharing a book with a partner, which had been fine up until today, he said 'You need to have your own book so you can follow along with the work we are doing'. I have had no problem following along with any of the work, have turned it all in, and answered the questions directed at me, all without owning my own book. So, through out me trying to reason with him on marking me down for not owning a book, I asked a final question. 'I do not have enough money to obtain the book at this time, are you saying that I will be losing at least a letter grade (participation is 15%) in your class based on my financial situation?'. To which he simply replied, 'Yes that's exactly what I'm saying'.
So... is that even legal? If it's not, can you help me find documents to present to him, and if not him the school board?
So... is that even legal? If it's not, can you help me find documents to present to him, and if not him the school board?
Bendery It Like Beckham on
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Proffesors tend to have god-like powers over grades in their classes. As long as what the lower grade for is not discrimination like race or sex, then usually it's fair game.
having said that, you could try going to your degree advisor or department head and asking how kosher this sort of thing is and what can be done about it. As a fair warning most will tell you to just suck it up and buy the book though
Most classes do require each person have a book, the fact many teachers don't care if you share is kind of a bonus.
How does the teacher know if you have the book or not if you are participating and turning in all the assignments?
Beyond that, I would probably try to look for some upper classmen who've already taken the class and see if you can pawn the book off of them, chances are it's the same book minus an edition change or whatever.
He better not be the author of said book though, because while not illegal or anything, that really would be fucked up on his part.
If he was saying "poor people get 15% less", you might have some sort of equal protection claim. But he's not. He's requiring everyone purchase supplies. You could complain to your community college administration about this, but that would an administrative issue, not a legal one. Just buy the book. If you can't afford it, get student loans, a second job, sell plasma or give up your internet subscription for a while. I assume it's one of the norton anthologies or something similar, and they should be available online for cheaper.
(do not actually do this)
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
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Most textbooks are written by scholars and professors in that field, and they milk the publishing as hard as they can.
I'm just gonna suck it up
Still won't hurt to ask the department head.
Edit: oops just ignore this post.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I think it would be pretty easy to suss this out, given that the professor's name would be actually, you know, on the cover and stuff.
If he is not a co-author, then I can't imagine what the conspiracy is. Professors don't get a kickback (from any reputable publisher) for teaching from a particular book.
Even if he is a co-author, do you know what the author's portion of a single new-book sale is for an $80 textbook with a major publisher? It's something like $10, shared among all the authors. If there are two authors on the textbook, the professor gets $5. Before taxes, so it's really like $3.25. If this is a scam, it's the worst paying scam in history.
On a used book, of course, the authors get nothing and all the proceeds go to some broker like Amazon. A somewhat pervasive phenomenon is that a lot of the "used" textbooks are free not-for-resale review copies given out to professors for marketing. The professors take these free books and then sell them for profit. Some publishers are going so far as to print these copies with special "review copy" covers on them to discourage the practice.
That particular tactic strikes me as both brilliant and sketchy at the same time. I don't do that, but in general very, very few people are getting rich off of textbook writing - scammy behaviors like this or not. On the whole, you'd make more (on a per-hour basis) working as a Subway Sandwich Artist instead of a textbook author.
It's amazing how much students bitch about an $80 textbook in the context of their overall education. I think it's mostly psychological, because it's costed out separately. I'd love to see an experiment where students had to actually write a check for each lecture. Let's say it's a cheap state University and costs $1500 a quarter to go, and you take three classes a quarter. That's $500 a class. Assuming it meets twice a week for ten weeks, that's $25 a lecture. Per head. I think students would feel a little less bad about spending $80 on a textbook if they were writing a check for $25 twice a week or $50 a week. You'd have to decide: wow, was that really worth the $25? You could buy two CDs, or take your significant other to the movies with popcorn for that kind of money.
But $80 is just a killer. Sigh.
At least you get to KEEP the book.
I'm so financially in the hole i got to a community college with a $26 a unit tuition, and I still have to get the costs waived or I would never be able to pay them
I'm not bitching about the $80 because I won't be able to go out with friends this weekend, I'm upset about the $80 dollars because if I pay it I'll no longer have a car, or a place to live. I guess I could just not pay my rent and instead keep the car...
Find a used textbook. You can likely find the $80 book for $20-40.
Okay, this strikes me as a giant pile of bullshit, and needlessly wasteful. Your sister's school should be ashamed of itself if it has anything resembling a "Green" program. Every student needing a new copy of the book, generating god nows how many useless or abandoned books over the years?
UF got in a ton of shit for professors having kick backs by pushing books.
That is such bs, especially considering used books are often bought by the students who can't afford buying all of those new textbooks.
I had a Psych professor who taught using the book he wrote. It was also a smaller cheaper book, which he apperantly had to update nearly every year to keep his publishing contract. This meant a used book of his might be okay next semester, but a new one was still pretty cheap.
school isn't free unfortunately.... you can't expect everyone to make exceptions for you just b/c of your unfortunate financial situation
1) Unless every section of your class and every teacher requires the purchase of the textbook, rather than access to the book, you should not be held liable to have it.
2) If this is true, then it must be on your course syllabi. Check that. Then ask to see the course expectations and formation syllabi for when the course was originally drafted. If it wasn't on that first syllabi, they technically can't require you to do so.
3) This seems like it is violating FERPA (the Federal Ed. Privacy Laws). This is also against accreditation rules, especially if the professor contributed to the textbook.
Go to the Department Chair and ask the legality of this, and the reasoning behind it. If they are not helpful, threaten to go to the dean of the college/President's office.
This is the sort of thing that can get a school un-accredited. This is doubly true if the Professor, or one in the department, contributed to the book. In all likelihood they will rule in your favor, assuming you can prove your work is keeping up and you have some form of access to the required materials.
However, if this is a way to get around failing, you are boned. You can petition most things, but doing so with failing grades (before the textbook thing) will probably get you nowhere.