For Immediate Release

October 11, 2005

Contact: Judith Platt
Ph: 202-220-4551
Email: jplatt@publishers.org

Publishers’ Role More Important Than Ever in High School Achievement and College Success, Pat Schroeder Tells Washington Education Summit

Washington, DC, October 11, 2005:  At a time when the nation’s high schools struggle to prepare college-bound students and more than a third of the faculty at U.S. colleges find most of their students lack basic skills, the role of educational publishers is more critical than ever. This was the message former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) delivered today at the 2005 Summit on High School Achievement in Washington, D.C.  The AAP School Division-sponsored Summit gathered leading educators, researchers, publishers, and policy makers to discuss the challenges facing American high schools. 

Mrs. Schroeder said that the need for effective and creative instructional materials at the high school level is widely recognized and is being met by AAP’s School Division members who constantly seek to incorporate best practices into their learning tools. “This Summit is one more indication of how seriously our publishers take their professional growth.”

While this same professionalism is a hallmark of AAP’s higher education publishers, Mrs. Schroeder pointed out that college publishers have taken a lot of criticism of late over the cost of textbooks and instructional materials.  “What critics fail to acknowledge is that the job of bridging the gap between high school achievement and college success is increasingly being performed by innovative, adaptable instructional materials.” 

She noted that while a recent report from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA found that 40 percent of the nation’s faculty believe that most of their students lack basic skills for college level work, another Institute survey of incoming freshman nationwide found that 70 percent of them rate themselves as “above average.”

“Faculty members are asking our publishers for  materials to bring students up to speed, while students think the materials are not needed and consider them frills.  Obviously, this Lake Woebegone effect is causing great friction and publishers are caught in the middle,” said Mrs. Schroeder.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry.  AAP’s members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses, and scholarly societies.  AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field, educational materials for the elementary, secondary, postsecondary,  and professional markets, computer software, and electronic products and services.

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