Gothamist: Surprise! The Department of Education Overpays For Books

garth

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 15:06:19 -0500

Yeah, I did see that the News wasn't going by ISBN numbers, but, y'know, who wants to let facts get in the way of a good DoE bashing? As for the $31.50, uhm, you might call it a typo. I prefer the second option. Those Gothamist Gremlins struck again!

Jesse

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 14:29:00 -0500

("David Copperfield" on Amazon? $31.50, on FastTrack? $5.94). Huh? I thought your numbers were flipped, but clicking through, the Amazon link shows a price of $2.something. Typo? Gremlins?

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 14:18:46 -0500

Did you note how the Daily News reporter just picked the cheapest copy of the title from Amazon.com and compared it to something on the DOE catalog without matching up the ISBN? This was NOT an apples to apple comparison. She could very well be comparing a heavily annotated, well-edited Norton edition of David Copperfield (which admittedly is pricier) to a cheap tradebook paperback. I would hope that any teacher worth their salary takes into consideration the edition of the text that they choose to use in the classroom. When you compare apples to apples, sometimes Amazon is cheaper but many times the DOE prices are better.