[Cadaverous Pallor]

Love this:

Teachers decide to buy books for 1st graders on animals. They do reports each year. When the books come in the principal decides they should go to the library so everyone can use them, since 1st-3rd does the animal reports. Sounds great, eh? Well I take one look at these books and groan....they're WAY TOO HARD for 1st through 3rd. In fact, they're for 5th graders. There's a huge difference. To a 1st grader, these books as full of pretty pictures and nonsense squiggles.

So I try to convince the principal and teacher involved that these should be returned, and more suitable books purchased. Both of them say the same thing to me - "These are so pretty, and other kids can use them, you can just keep them." Yes, they are gorgeous books. But I know that they spent at least $900 on them, probably more like a grand. Seriously. Probably $1000 on books that don't fit the needs they were supposed to fit. I said to them, look, there are much better choices out there, and they said "we'll buy them next year."

As a Libertarian taxpayer that has internal conflicts with my government jobs, I'm appalled.

Not to say that the money is "going down the drain" but it could definitely have been better spent.

When I asked the teacher about how they bought them, she said "well the company catalog made them look like low level books." They never checked the reading levels. We've spent countless thousands of dollars on a networked reading program that is in every classroom, a part of every child's requirements, and guides every single book purchase I make....and they never checked.

I. LOVE. IT.