Cost of paper

Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle

Nicholas Carlson does the math using the cost of printing a year's worth of the New York Times.

How much paper would need to be eliminated from a student's school year to pay for an e-book reader? Or a netbook?

• textbooks
• worksheets and study guides
• novels and supplimentary reading
• forms, permission slips, newsletters
• student work turned in on paper

How much is your district now paying for print versions of textbooks, paper, copiers, printers, toner, support, repairs, printer salaries, storage spaces, delivery costs, and other print related costs over, say, two years? Divide total by number of students. Is it more or less than $350? - the cost of a netbook.

Comments

[Zach]

Back of the napkin figures: Average costs of a new textbook = $80 * 5 subject areas = $400.

I don't want to make the argument too simplistic though. Textbook companies do (from time to time) produce quality resources worthy of the dollars.

Still, I would like to see more teachers sharing their resources under a CC license (preferably in an easy to find location). To some extent, wikipedia is becoming such a resource (at least from a social studies teacher's perspective...I know the images, maps, etc can be used without worrying about copyright). Take such a repository of resources, give each student a netbook, and you might see districts saving a good amount of money

[Joel VerDuin]

... and how much would it cost to truly get to the point where everything done on paper could be delivered to that Netbook? I'm not trying to be a buzzkill, but the total cost of owning anything should include all of the hard and soft costs - not just the ones that make an argument look popular.

My favorite, and similar example, is when school boards go paperless to save money. Rarely does anyone include the laptops, the wireless, the document management system (if purchased), the technical support cost, the training, the long term cost of replacing those items, digital storage (OK this is cheap), ...

[Jim McGuire]

This is such an interesting question. When I recently discussed it on a blog post it seemed like the biggest reason for books was the sentimental value. I doubt if that is enough reason to stop the move towards digital.

[Libby]

My question would be related to how the e-book readers are distributed. Do the kids get to keep them? That seems to be important, because I think they would take better care of something they keep, and it would be more useful to the students if they can use it for fun reading as well as assigned reading, but it's then possible that school system savings are lost.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Joel,

You (and Zack) are absolutely right that there would be plenty of additional costs involved in electronic textbooks as well. I don’t call that being a buzz kill, just sensible.

Thanks,

Doug

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the link. Good post and fascinating student comments! A bit more conservative than I would have guessed.

All the best,

Doug

Hi Libby,

In my perfect world, kids would certainly keep them – at least for 24/7 while in school. Reading outside of school – what a concept!

All the best,

Doug