Written by: Beck

This is virtually too stupid for words. Naturally, it's happening in California.

The California Assembly is betting that kids learn more with small books.

Lawmakers voted Thursday to ban school districts from purchasing textbooks longer than 200 pages.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind nationwide, was hailed by supporters as a way to revolutionize education.

Critics lambasted Assembly Bill 756 as silly.

The reason critics lambasted the bill as "silly" is because "the dumbest fucking thing yet to come out of the California legislature" was unprintable. Mind you, I wouldn't bet a dime that the CA government hasn't done something, er, sillier. Nonetheless, you see my point.

And now, to shoot some barrel-dwelling fish:

But Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, said critics are thinking too narrowly.

California schools are teaching kids with the same kinds of massive books that were used generations ago, though the world has changed significantly, Goldberg said.

That's right. Before, the world was sufficiently complicated to require large text books. Now days, however, everything in the world is far simpler, typically taking up 198 pages or fewer.

The workplace increasingly demands more than the ability to read Page 435 of some manual.

It requires expertise in using the Internet to research and solve problems, according to Goldberg.

That's right, why learn to read when you can learn to Google? After all, something worth doing is worth doing really half-assed.

"Our textbooks are not going to be able to meet that standard," said Goldberg, a former Compton high school teacher. "I think it's time for us to begin to approach the problem in a different way."

What, by chopping text books into two volumes and selling them separately at inflated prices? Or perhaps learning should be outlawed altogether, as it's fruitless pursuit can be damaging to the self-esteem of morons. No, wait, I have an idea on how to "approach the problem from a different way." Let's start by rounding up every single California politician and/or bureaucrat and shipping them to China (I would say France, but I suspect the French have more common sense), where the only book you need to educate anyone is little and handily color-coded.

AB 756 would force publishers to condense key ideas, basic problems and basic knowledge into 200 pages, then to provide a rich appendix with Web sites where students can go for more information.

Translation Into English: AB 756 would force publishers to dumb-down key concepts, eliminate details, facts, and other relevant information, and turn an instrument of learning into a smallish, easily transported fusion of the concepts behind Cliff's Notes and those -For Dummies guide books.

AB 756 was approved by a vote of 42-28, with most Republicans opposing the measure. It now goes to the Senate.

Why does this not surprise me?

Lawmakers were given no estimates, however, of potential impacts to student backpacks or campus coffers.

Goldberg said the thrust of her bill is learning, not economics.

I'm inclined to believe that it's about neither learning

nor

economics. Unless by "economics" you mean "giving a bunch of money to the text-book publishing industry to publish abridged versions of all their offerings."

"We're talking about a dynamic education system that brings young people into being a part of the learning process," she said.

Always beware of people using the adjective "dynamic." Unless it's a physicist discussing a non-static mechanical system, dynamic is almost exclusively an adjective used by intellectually bankrupt pontificators attempting to sound like they know what they're actually talking about.

Oh, and is Goldberg actually suggesting that, prior to the advent of comic book sized textbooks, students were not part of the learning process? I mean, really, that last sentence would retain precisely the same amount of meaning if instead it were just a string of gibberish.

The Association of American Publishers opposes the bill, saying the arbitrary 200-page limit could force publishers to produce multiple volumes to cover the state's content standards.

This is the really astonishing part. Even the text-book publishers don't support this bill.

One key question, [Michael Kirst, a Stanford education professor and co-director of Policy Analysis for Education] said, is whether a 200-page limit would be equally practical for every subject - from math to social science.

Gee, what a revolutionary notion. Perhaps the best way to teach calculus doesn't actually involve running a Google search. And finally, I leave you with this last bit of idiocy. I'll go ahead and leave it to you, dear reader, to spot the painfully awful flaw with the last sentence.

"(AB 756) says don't give students a predigested version of what U.S. history is, let them explore the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress," Goldberg said.

"It's time for California to be the leader that it always has been."

I think I've discovered the real problem. California's legislators must have been educated... in California.

(Hat tip: Captain's Quarters)