Lori Gray hid her social studies book in her bedroom closet rather than take it to class: The 11-year-old, in seventh grade at Marley Middle School, was ashamed of the way it looked.
"The cover was torn, and if you could fold the front and back covers together the pages would have fallen out," said her mother, Karen Gray. "She was too embarrassed to tell the teacher, or to tell me, until she got punished for not bringing the book to class."
Lori finally got a better textbook, but more and more Anne Arundel County students are using older, sometimes outdated books.
School administrators lament falling behind in replacing books but say parents must remember that textbooks are only one method of teaching students.
"We used to replace books every five years," said Kenneth Lawson, associate superintendent for instruction and student services. "Now we're replacing them on a seven- or eight-year cycle. We know we have some catching up to do."
Parents have been complaining about the textbook situation in recent weeks because they were upset by a complicated financial arrangement the Board of Education used to supply photocopiers to schools. Some of the money came from the fund for new books. School administrators say the decision is not as bizarre as it may seem.
In the budget, textbooks are lumped together with all other items teachers may use to educate students. The budget category is called "materials of instruction" -- M.O.I. in education lingo.
"What parents don't understand is that M.O.I. is not a code for textbooks," said Nancy Mann, assistant superintendent for instruction. "A textbook is something parents can see and touch and understand. We need to communicate to parents about what is available in classrooms, other than textbooks, for their children to gain knowledge."
A sampling of M.O.I. includes:
* Frogs for biology.
* Chemicals for chemistry.
* Food for home economics class.
* Toys for students to use while they're learning to count in kindergarten.
And balls, computer software, construction paper, crayons, filmstrips, flashcards, globes, jump ropes, maps, paint, paper, pencils, videos, and workbooks are all part of M.O.I., Mr. Lawson said.
M.O.I. money also pays for ditto paper, supplies such as fluid used to fill ditto or mimeograph machines, and the repair of those machines. Mr. Lawson said the money is used that way because ditto and mimeograph machines are used to make copies of work sheets or tests for students.
Hence, the Board of Education's decision to spend some of the M.O.I. money on paper for photocopiers and toner, the chemical that helps make copies. Money for the copiers also was drawn from the new equipment and maintenance budgets, Mr. Lawson said.
"We figured out that we could put copiers in for not much more than we were already spending on supplies and repair and service, and get a high quality photocopier in every school," Mr. Lawson said.
He said the school system fell behind in buying textbooks because of economics, not because it spent the money on something else. "Textbooks cost more now, and there's less money to spend on them," he said.
Ten years ago the school system had $5.1 million to spend on M.O.I.
This fiscal year's M.O.I. budget is $8.1 million, or 61 percent higher than in 1984 -- but it has remained the same for the past three years.
But in the past 10 years, textbooks have more than doubled in price.
The school system's fifth-grade math textbook, for example, cost $11.52 in 1984. It now costs $24.09, more than double the old price. A first-grade reading book that cost $7.29 in 1984 now sells for $20.46, nearly three times as much.
"In the last three or four years, we've had cost containment and reductions in spending, and one of the areas tapped [for give-backs] was materials of instruction," Mr. Lawson said. "Then we have increasing enrollment, and fewer manufacturers making textbooks, which drives the price up."
For the most part, decisions about when textbooks should be replaced are left to school principals, whose M.O.I. budgets are based on the number of students and teachers at the school.
The structure of the M.O.I. budget category makes it difficult to determine specifically how many new books are bought each year, unless you ask each principal.
There is no way to know if money intended for books was spent instead on something else, said Nancy Schrum, president of the Bodkin Elementary PTA. She has testified on the subject at school board meetings earlier this year, encouraging audits of school spending.
"The school system is very antiquated when it comes to accounting for what is spent," Mrs. Schrum said. "Why isn't this registering with the people who are responsible for allocating the money? How do we know principals are spending the money wisely? There's basically nothing in place for them to review how the M.O.I. money is spent. Essentially they're trusting principals to use the money for classrooms."
Principals say part of the problem, though, is that the money for books doesn't go as far as it once did.
"What parents need to understand is how little you get for your money," said Rocco Ferretti, the principal at Bodkin Elementary.
He started at Bodkin this fall, but the school's $27,013 for M.O.I. for the current school year had already been allocated by the departing principal.
But Mr. Ferretti recalled the spending dilemmas he faced during the past five years, when he was principal at Pasadena Elementary.
At Pasadena, Mr. Ferretti's M.O.I. budget for the current fiscal year was $19,193. But that money was quickly spent, some on books that must be purchased every year, he said.
"One of the things moms and dads need to understand is that we use consumable math books for the younger students, and you have to buy new ones every year, while other textbooks last longer," he said. "At Pasadena that meant spending about $1,000 a grade level for kindergarten through third grade every year. That's about $4,000 right there every year."
When the book manufacturer upgraded the entire elementary math book series, new books had to be purchased for all 400 or so Pasadena Elementary students. It cost $9,000. New social studies books for fourth grade cost $600, Mr. Ferretti said. "The book companies have you over a barrel," he said.
Harry Calendar, principal at Chesapeake High School, concurred.
"The price per book is out of sight," he said.
His M.O.I. budget this year was $124,033 because his school is large. The budget includes money for books in subjects that aren't offered to younger students.
"I'd say probably 65 percent to 75 percent of my M.O.I. budget is spent on new textbooks," Mr. Calendar said. "This year, I had to replace all the French books, and it cost $5,000 for 150 textbooks."
Health books, he said, cost about $35 a piece. That means the two health teachers each have just enough books for their classes.
"If someone loses a book though, there isn't another one," Mr. Calendar said. "And all the money we collect in fees when books are lost, I put right back into M.O.I. and use it buy more books."
Principals also have a difficult choice to make when spending M.O.I. money: Is it better to invest in books, for example, or software?
In social studies, for instance, world events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the former Soviet Union often make textbooks out of date as soon as they're printed, said Ms. Mann, the assistant superintendent.
"In science especially, you can get information on CD-ROM that isn't even in a textbook yet," Ms. Mann said. "In some cases technology is a better learning tool than a textbook."
On a recent visit to the computer lab at Riviera Beach Elementary School, Ms. Mann watched a student use a CD-ROM computer to research Marco Polo's travels.
"He ended up taking home a colored map of Marco Polo's routes, printed information, and he got to watch the computer trace the route on the screen," she said. "He didn't have a book, but you can't say he wasn't learning."
The problem, she said, is that "most parents haven't seen CD-ROM in action and don't know what it is, while most parents have seen a textbook and know what it can do," Ms. Mann said. "Yes, we plan to spend more money for M.O.I. and textbooks," Ms. Mann said. "Textbooks are vitally important, but they're not the only medium we'll be using in the future."
But Mrs. Schrum said the importance of textbooks can't be overstated. Parents "want textbooks" for their children, she said. Some parents, including the Bodkin PTA, have offered to buy books for the school system but were told they "could not buy textbooks" because it is against school board policy, Mrs. Schrum said.
"I think we're losing something" by getting away from textbooks, Mrs. Schrum said, not to mention the overwhelming number of dittos that are sent home. "At my house, we keep all the dittos and punch them with a three-hole punch and put them in a notebook so they can be reviewed later," Mrs. Schrum said. "Essentially we're creating our own books."