In many urban public high schools in this country, the real textbook scandal is that there aren't enough books to go around. In one San Francisco Bay Area high school students who have to rely on handouts call their teacher a ditto pusher. Many complain the textbook shortage is chronic and see it as a sign the system doesn't really care whether they get educated or not. Adrian DeDomenico is a reporter for YO! Youth Outlook, a monthly newspaper by and about Bay Area youth published by Pacific News Service.

OAKLAND, CA. -- It's the third week of school, you need to study, but you still don't have a textbook. In high schools all over the San Francisco Bay Area, students say a lack of textbooks is forcing them to share books with other students, or simply skip doing homework. Some students who do have books complain that in many cases they are missing pages or are filled with graffiti. Of 24 students interviewed, 21 reported there weren't enough books to go around in their classes.

"Each class is short at least ten books," says Phat Hunh, a member of the student council at Oakland High School, adding that the recent addition of a ninth grade has contributed to the problem. "Most people who don't have books can't do the work, so they decide not to go to school. The teachers can't do anything about it."

At the Oakland Unified School District, Crystal Page of the public relations department says that the district is currently missing about two percent of its textbooks due to delays at the publishers and the UPS strike. But students and teachers say the book shortage is not a one-time problem.

At Oakland's Castlemont High, says Thomas Hutchins, a senior, "there are from time to time too many students for the number of books on hand. This causes a delay for some students of two to three weeks before books are available for use."

Wayne Brooks, who teaches social science at Oakland Technical High School, says that last year he was only able to outfit one of his five classes with enough textbooks to send every student home with one. "That class performed well," he observes. "The others..." -- his voice trails off. "It's hard to be a member of the team when they don't even give you a uniform. (A student might say), 'It's hard for me to be a student if you don't give me a book."'

"We couldn't take them (textbooks) home to use whatsoever," says Celia, a former Lincoln High school student. "We had to copy the questions down and answer them at home. When exams came at the end of a chapter we couldn't take the books home (to study)." Celia recalls having to read "Great Expectations" in class, which took three weeks away from instruction time.

In many schools, books are used and re-used year after year, leaving some students with texts that are barely legible due to graffiti and missing pages. "If you want the good textbooks you wait two or three months," recalls Susana Palma, who attended John O'Connell Technical High School in San Francisco. "Usually, the teachers are like, 'We'll get you new textbooks, but in the meantime we're going to give you these.' They're all broken. Sometimes the cover is written all over, or the book doesn't even have a cover."

"Like many schools, we have textbook problems," O'Connell principal Steve Hirabayashi acknowledges. "We don't have lockers and kids have to carry their textbooks, so we have an unusually high number of lost textbooks. The books really do get abused, and kids use books that are sometimes in poor condition. We will replace them eventually."

Many teachers resort to photocopies and handouts to make up for missing books. Sarah Fuches, who worked as a substitute teacher at Castlemont, recalls photocopying entire books and competing with other teachers for limited resources. "You just horde it," Fuches explains. "You're like, 'OK, this is my set of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," and I'm not lending it to anybody, because I only have 30 copies."

One former school volunteer, who assisted in math classes at an East Bay high school, was appalled to find that upper level calculus students had textbooks they could take home each night while students in lower-level classes had to content themselves with handouts. "The students knew what was up," he recalls. "They called the teacher a 'ditto pusher."'

"The ugliest part was that this was standard practice," this disillusioned volunteer recalls. "When I asked the teacher and the department head about the situation, they told me the kids in remedial classes 'couldn't be trusted with books."'

Without textbooks, students say they feel like they're left with crumbs. And the message of their empty backpacks comes through loud and clear: "If you don't care about our education, why should we?"