Duct-taped Textbooks

When parents are trying to buy body armor for their kids fighting King George's War on Iraq, I guess it is a minor inconvenience to talk about parents being pressured into buying textbooks for their kids in Illinois schools. However you look at it, its another example of world-class rhetoric and half-assed response:

Across Illinois, students are resorting to duct tape and rubber bands to hold together decrepit textbooks. Other books are so woefully out-of-date they don't teach fundamentals such as the fall of Soviet communism, a three-month Tribune investigation has found.

A survey of 50 districts of varying wealth and size shows public schools are failing to provide the most basic tool of learning: a current book in good condition.

Nearly 80 percent of districts surveyed are using textbooks in a main academic area that are out-of-date--at least 8 years old. About 22 percent of districts have books at least 15 years old.

Get the rest of this major story from the Chicago Tribune.