I read with interest the editorial about the negative effects heavy backpacks have on schoolchildren.
I was also equally amused by the suggestion to trim textbooks or to purchase two sets of textbooks so that the kids wouldn’t have to carry the books to and from school every day.
The downside is that one solution would cheat the students out of the education they deserve, and the other would be incredibly expensive.
There is a simple solution here that I think a lot of people have overlooked, one that combines both proposals listed above. The simple solution would be to break down a single textbook into two or more smaller textbooks.
This would allow a student to take home a much lighter book load, and the cost, while higher than a standard textbook, wouldn’t be prohibitive.
