Lawmaker wants to take a look at lightening students' backpacks

SPRINGFIELD - As students are assigned more and more homework and schools pile on the college prep courses at an earlier age, their textbooks are giving them more than paper cuts.

State Sen. Dan Cronin, an Elmhurst Republican, said he has seen increased injuries in young students in the suburbs because their backpacks are too heavy. The lawmaker and father said he's even seen minor injuries and pain in his own children from carrying too heavy of a load.

Cronin wants to launch a task force to study how hazardous carrying heavy textbooks is on the health of K-12 students. He wants the task force to make recommendations of any alternatives that may exist or could be created to the standard textbook format.

"I don't want to just simply impose my view on a business," he said. "I want the businesses and schools to try to sort of set some goals and some sort of new direction of for how educational materials are developed."

The plan is pending in the state Senate.

There's already a recommendation from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons advising that a child's backpack should weigh no more than 15 to 20 percent of the child's body weight to avoid injuries.

Cronin's goal is for the schools and textbook companies to jointly come to an agreement on how to supplement heavy textbooks with alternative learning materials such as CDs.

Cronin said textbook manufacturers are such a powerful and influential interest group no one has made an effort to change the weight of their books. He said the companies have been resistant to the health studies.

"The textbook industry really has no incentive to change as long as school districts and the education establishment keeps entering into contracts and buying textbooks in this old way of delivering substantial material, they are never going to change," Cronin said.

Jay Diskey, executive director of the Association of American Publishers school division, said this is Illinois' second effort to look at this issue, citing a 2006 size and weight commission.

"Steps have been taken to ease the load, by nearly all major publishers including digital components, such as CD-ROMs or sign-ons to secure Web sites to look at the book online," said Diskey.

However, he said it's not always the publisher's burden to lighten the load.

"Sometimes students don't have time to get to lockers in between periods or do not have a locker for security reasons," he said. "Some students don't have access to a computer at home."

Diskey has a meeting with Cronin to look further into the issue.