eBay prohibits textbooks for homeschool teachers
A new policy by Internet trading behemoth eBay that bans homeschool teachers’ texts from its auctions is prompting a tirade of complaints from the company’s faithful customers.
“Really the homeschooling community is a huge participant in eBay when you get to thinking about it,” said one customer who was identified as ”angels*wings” on an eBay blog. “We buy textbooks naturally but we also purchase items like microscopes, slides, globes, maps, manipulatives, educational games, reading books, supplies for our classrooms … stickers, idea books, folders, sheet protectors, school supplies, software, educational movies, models, post cards … the list is enormous.”
The policy, which is inclusive of all teachers’ texts, was made known recently as those who were auctioning various books watched as their postings were deleted.
Greed always ruins the good.
If you read the entire article you will see that Ebay is concerned that allowing the sale of teachers editions on Ebay would allow students to obtain the all the answers to the textbook.
It is the higher education that a homeschooler receives, along with the moral principals taught at home that shudder the cheating angle. Nice try
The culprit is probably book publishers pressuring eBay so they can sell NEW books!
All around, it is pretty sad. This shouldn’t be happening. Hopefully, eBay will see the error of their ways and change. Heck. Amazon has a great system of selling used books. Possibly a win for them!
Like Bob said They have a good reason for this policy.
It is not like they can’t get the books. They just don’t get the Ebay discount. Too bad. If you don’t like it then send your kid to a private school or to the local public school.
Ebay is not required to allow the sale of anything!
I can see an enterprising 15 year old buying a teachers edition and selling the answer keys or supplying the answers free for the popularity. Perhaps if the parent is unfamiliar with the subject to know or workout the problems/questions, they shouldn’t be trying to teach it. I’m not against home schooling. If a parent can network with others with adequate training it does go better. Local schools has to supply textbooks for home schoolers, but no expertise. Quite a few professional teachers tutor in advanced subjects on the side. Many home school parents has so many ideological objections that they don’t want outside help.
J, there are some parents out there that can not afford private school, but also the public schools are (pick the one that fits you best) poor quality, teaches things that are against the families moral make up (family believes sex before marrage is bad, and the public schools are giving out comdoms and saying here is how to have sex now) or teaching things that said family does not believe, and belittles those that don’t believe that stuff (read evolution)
So for said family why can they not do home schooling and why are they being discrimintated against.
Highghawker
“Greed always ruins the good”
What? How is Ebay profiting from this decision?
“It is the higher education that a homeschooler receives”
Can you show me the scientific evidence to that please?
“along with the moral principals taught at home that shudder the cheating angle.”
This part of your comment reeks of religious zealotry. School is not about teaching morals. That should always be done at home.
Michael P. O’Connor
I know there are a lot of public schools that are very, very bad. BUT
Lets not kid each other the real reason is usually religion or some other radical belief system. There is no scientific evidence, or at least I have never seen it, that shows home school children get a better education than they would in their local school.
“So for said family why can they not do home schooling and why are they being discrimintated against”
Unfortunately they can!
As for discrimination……..Ebay isn’t discriminating against them. They are enforcing a policy that applies across the board
Don’t get me wrong I think there are “SOME” people that are qualified to educate their children with the knowledge for today’s world. “MOST” are not!
I was checking out an online paperback exchange about a week ago. It’s easy and you list your books and get access to all the other listed books in the system. The only costs for users is shipping the books. An online text book exchange could simply bypass ebay, plus no user fees. No greed, plenty of goodness. Users helping users without the corporate overhead costs. Ebay could offer a book exchange, although I doubt they will. It’s more of the keep your junk off our auction site. It is their site. Google Base could be used for a free book exchange and make it searchable.
As #5 said: “Ebay is not required to allow the sale of anything!”
If Ebay thinks allowing sales of something causes them more problems than they think its worth, then they as a PRIVATE company, can make whatever decision they want.
The home schoolers should be the first ones to support the libertarian concept that individual families AND organizations should go about their business as they want.
Open Source text books anyone? Anyone out there want to get the ball rolling?
A Google Book Base exchange that lets users list for free could include all types of books and could become large very fast. Unlike their controversial effort to copy books, nobody could stop it. It wouldn’t have copyright issues. Google could serve tons of ads with this. I see this as a sensible ebay workaround. Google could help by adding shipping tools and other features to streamline it. They could also offer a CD exchange. I have a ton of CD’s I’d trade for new used CD’s. CD’s and books are cheap enough to ship to make the concept viable.
“would allow students to obtain the all the answers to the textbook.”
Can someone explain to me why a student having the answers is a bad thing? Isn’t having the answers the entire point?! The worst that could happen is that some students could memorize the answers for a test. And in my eyes that’s learning!
You can do open source textbooks anytime you want. It’s going to be expensive. You will need cash for printing and binding and people aren’t going to write for nothing.
SN,
Having all the answers is required to pass the test. The faster you can find the answers the better. Kids want free time to do other stuff. Teachers will make the tests more cryptic, so finding the answer using the Internet is more difficult. This could make the tests more confusing and confusion is control or lack of control. The point of a test is to determine understanding and keep score. If you know next to nothing a can play football you get a scholarship. If you know a lot and can learn more using the Internet, you are penalized and called a cheater. That’s why the athletic director is paid more than all the professors and the average student ends up in debt paying for tuition. The athletes get coddled and the intellectuals get hassled.
Athletics trumps academics for most institutions of higher earning. Smart people look for ways around the hassle. Google helps you tackle information, which is more useful than tackling a 250 pound fullback for most people.
SN
It isn’t about having the answers.
It is about understanding the answers.
Memorization is NOT learning because you still don’t know why it is the right answer.
The best tests I have seen allow you to have any book or notes while taking the test and if you don’t know the material it won’t matter. The whole buying the answers thing is silly. If students are going to think that memorizing the answers is going to help then you have a lousy teacher. In the long run it won’t help them when they get a job.(actually hurt them)
The homeschoolers could sell their stuff on craigslist. No fees
It is about understanding the answers.
It’s about passing the exam, not explaining how you got the answer. Every question on a test has an answer that is common knowledge, which is why all the tests are the same. It’s about finding the answer and recording it properly using documentation in an understandable way. If you can memorize it without documentation, good for you. Saying memorization is bad or a way around something is silly. Now we are going to have tests of tests to prove you didn’t just memorize the answers. You can’t pass a test without memorizing the information to answer the questions. Meet the man with no memory, who scored 100% on the test while retaining absolutely nothing he learned. He can tell you how he passed the test by forgetting everything he studied.
Cheating doesn’t help. Three guys cut class. The next day they come to class. The teacher asks where they were. We had a flat tire says one. Fine says the teacher, take your seats. Today we are having a test. Take out your pencils and each of you answer the following question and write down the answer. Which tire was flat? No cheating please!
There’s argument here because people like to disagree and be difficult. The other part is vanity. People like to show how much they know even if they know next to nothing. Making things more confusing and more complicated is fun. That’s how a lot of stuff works. Patch your tire and patch your software and then patch the patches before your operating system crashes. It’s a world of code and it is getting more complicated on the road ahead. Then you blow a tire! Ah fooey.
I think a good motto is, “always be prepared.”
If you have a garden you learn something new from it every day If you don’t, you’re really not trying. The corn is very educational and the tastes good.
A guy just told me that Ebay is giving Google rights to advertise on sites outside of the U.S.. Why not inside the U.S.? Would that cause problems? I have no details on any of this yet. Make it up as you go along and always be unprepared. Got stuff to do in the U.S., so I gotta go! Good luck sorting it all out.
Sorry, the taste is good. My mistake.
The test is an assessment of how many of the learning objectives were met. The test is not the goal, meeting the course objectives is the goal. Very few of these texts contain final exams, at least among major publishers.
FWIW, as a publisher of said texts, we have been threatened with lawsuits by schools for allowing the sale of teacher editions and instructor materials. Keeping these editions out of the hands of students is absolutely necessary if the school is to maintain ANY credibility.
Unfortunately, home school parents get caught in the crossfire when online sales are restricted. The parents can usually call the publisher and purchase teacher editions. Good luck on the discounts, though.
Considering that you can purchase the teacher’s guide to just about every text book on the market from many other Internet sources, this is a pretty stupid policy other than to make some kind of corporate moral statement.
Uncle Jim
What? Your cute little anecdote is a little ambiguous.
You are right. Learning is the point. Memorization is not learning. You can memorize the formula for the circumference of a circle but unless you can apply it you have learned nothing. example. Most people know the formula E = mc2. But do they even know what it applies too? Do they even know what E, m and c represent? Do they even know what branch of science it comes from? If they don’t all they have is a group of figures memorized in an order that mean nothing.
I would LOVE,
That EACh school system would MAKE their own books…
ADD the history that is needed…
Math dont change, much, until you get to the higher math.
Reading dont change, just the way to teach it.
Writing, and spelling dont change.
90% of teaching dont change, except history and technical/scientific advancements…
It is easy to have it ALL formated and ready to print for EAVERY student, the books they will need and WANT… These books cost ALOT of money even to the schools.
Just make a FEW BIg files on the computer, and SELL the information, and LET THEM PRINT IT OUT, as needed…
Just a little taste of the real world these parents are sheltering their kids from.
I’m sure “Angel Wings” students are getting a great well balanced education.
Home schoolers are freaks anyway.
So screw them/
No! they are not freaks