As a homeschool parent I feel that an agreement can be made so both parties can benefit. I understand e-bays point, however, you cannot just exclude our group from its use.
EBAY: It's not your job to try to legislate morality. If students want to cheat, they will find a way to do so. Please re-institute the sale of TM's on your site
Of course Ebay is a private company and free to do as it pleases. Homeschoolers are not forced to shop here or sell here. But in view of the nature of an on-line auction, and the market to homeschool teachers, It makes sense to offer teacher manuals.
It's not their job to determine who is and isn't a teacher. You are discriminating against legal homeschoolers trying to afford to give their children a good education. Discrimination of any kind is just that, and that is illegal. There are many of us out there that need to be able to purchase used manuals to include the teacher's. It is not fair to those who regularly use this venue as a way of affording to homeschool. I don't know of any rich homeschoolers.
I checked the user agreement, and it clearly states that you may not use the site if you are under the age of 18. Therefore, the reason stated by ebay for the policy is not valid. This new policy discriminates against homeschooling families who count on selling their used material to finance next year's books. Please change the policy.
Policies such as these are dreamed up by people and can be changed by people. Ebay is just another example of the institutional resistance to allowing people to make their own choices regarding their family values and homeschooling in particular. Ebay needs to check the bias of the person(s) responsible for this policy and ask the hard questions. Is this even a policy or issue that they need to be invovled in? There are way too many other ethical and moral issues for this (and any other on-line company)to be addressed starting with internal personell.When we need corporate America to be our moral police, we are in bigger trouble than we are now!
It's the parents job to monitor what packages come into their home. So if there are parents out there that don't do that job, it's not ebay's job to monitor it for them. It would have to be public school students that are doing it and that puts all of us homeschooling parents at a severe disadvantage costwise to buy the materials our children need for their education. Stop trying to do the parents' jobs for them.
It is not ebays problem if students cheat... I doubt most students would do this anyway. It will hurt more than do good by keeping valid homeschoolers from being able to buy/sell curriculum for teaching their children.
Teacher's editions are sold primarily by and for homeschool families. I don't even have a problem with college students needing them. They are generally for homework help if that is the case. No professor relies on teacher edition answers for testing either unless it's some homework -- Students will still have to perform on tests and exams in the classroom. So that is a poor reason for the materials being banned.
