The curriculum at schools has allowed Texas Instruments to create a monopoly over the graphing calculator business that has hurt students’ wallets and innovation alike.
The staple of every modern math classroom is the calculator. This staple, however, is owned and controlled by Texas Instruments. Senior Aadil Manazir expressed their popularity in math classes at PVHS, “Every single person in my class has some sort of a Texas Instrument Calculator, including my teacher.” This is not just locally in Pleasant Valley High School but also worldwide, more than 80 percent of graphing calculators sold are produced by Texas Instruments.
However, this outlier in the free market is mostly caused by schools and their curriculum. “In almost every math class since High School, every person pretty much has had to have a Texas Instrument calculator or they would fall behind,” said Delaney Evans, “The teachers made sure to tell the class it was not a school mandate, but everyone felt like it was as the lessons were often taught and based on Texas Instruments’ calculators.”
This monopoly of the market has led to Texas Instrument not feeling the urge to innovate as they own almost the entire market. “The most popular graphing calculator by far in school is the TI-84 Plus as most of my teachers, friends, and classmates have them,” said Amuyula Pitulla. The TI-84 Plus, however, has been in production for over 15 years, with little change.
Usually, innovation would occur over 15 years or there would be at least a price drop, but the price of the TI-84 Plus has stayed the same, not including interest, for a product designed over a decade ago in a massively innovating chip market.
Many other companies have attempted to challenge this monopoly in the past. A rival calculator found on Casio’s website, comparable to a Texas Instruments product, was 20 to 30 percent cheaper. This is money any student or parent would gladly save, but because of pressure that Evans described above, this money goes to buying a calculator from Texas Instruments and eventually to the company’s profit margin.
Schools need to create an atmosphere in class and curriculum where graphing calculators from all producers are accepted so that students get the best product and are saving money in an era of expensive education.
