Open Source Text-Books in California? 32
"Our project has been lobbied/promoted to every level of government and education in California, from the Governor's office, and the legislature, on down. I hear 'this is a great idea' from many people in government, but not a single government agency or legislator (who agree the project has legs) - not even the California Teacher's Assn. - wants to promote it as an initiative in the legislature.
Nobody wants to upset the status quo, where commercial publishers - in a virtual oligopoly - create costly textbook products that have risen at three times the rate of inflation since 1992. It's not unusual for K-12 books to cost 2-3 times what books with similar content would cost in a trade (regular) bookstore."
Publishing companies (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with open source texts (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically, the only information that gets entered is entered by interested parties. Therefore a topic like the Open Source movement get tons of information (both good and bad) and other things like photosynthesis get very little written about it.
In reference to the point that texts are rising at 3x the rate of inflation, does that take into account the increase in expenses of the publisher? There are many people involved in making a text, from the author to editors to the unions that run the mills and presses. Just because the price of something is rising faster than inflation does not automatically suggest that there is a problem. It could also suggest an improvement in the quality of the final product.
Re:The problem with open source texts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem with open source texts (Score:2)
All these forces are constrained by competition in the real world but in the oligopoly/government world of textbooks it's spend city.
As for people not writing what doesn't interest therm, there are two solutions. First, pay people. Basic mathematics may be boring but you could get very talented teachers in Romania, Poland, or
Wrong. (Score:2)
Re:The problem with open source texts (Score:2, Insightful)
As an example, I currently teach a class using the 11th edition of a textbook, which costs around $130. When I took this same class so
Having just graduated... (Score:1)
Authors don't get squat. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if your sister in law didn't know the significance of Pearl Harbor in regards to America entering WWII, then a case could be made against the educational system. Not knowing about one ship in the attack isn't that big a deal.
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:5, Interesting)
They neglect to mention George Washington was a slave owner.
That prior to entering politics, in his time as a lawyer, Abraham Lincoin was counsel in alot of cases relating to slavery and run away slaves... yet he never defended a slave.
They don't even mention that the 16th amendment could not be ratified without the southern states, but was put into effect anyway. They don't mention the drastic changes in citizenship that came with it. It wasn't until this point that people were U.S. Citizens instead of citizens of their respective states. They also strongly imply the civil war was over slavery even though historical evidence does not indicate this...
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:1)
Is it more important to know that the majority of people living in the colonies were loyal to the British crown or that the American War for Independence freed the colonists from British rule?
Is it more important to know that GW was a slave owner or that he was a general in the War for Independence and the first President?
Is it more important to know that AL was a lawyer or that he
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:2)
Both are important, and it hardly takes significantly more effort. I believe the view of these things should not be scewed in favor of the victor. If what we teach is one sided, like neglecting to mention that the first act of our foundering fathers was to ignore the will of the people, they have a name for it. B
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:1)
As I read this I found myself mostly in agreement until...
but refraining from giving overall OPINION, and sticking with OVERALL fact
You speak as if "facts" were some pure and knowable thing, freed from bias. I think this has been the thing that has most plagued the teaching of history, particularly US history, particularly at the primary and secondary levels. Because there are no facts devoid of bias, and even if we were able to boil the teaching of history down to "just the facts", we would be in a
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:2)
I have the distinct impression that you, suh, ah a Sutheneh...;)
Re:Authors don't get squat. (Score:2)
You may have had a mediocre US History teacher (Score:2)
You're WRONG about the Civil War not being over slavery. The primary reason for the Civil War was slavery. There were many other reasons, however. We covered those in class, too.
Double speak... (Score:2)
This kind of talk about future savongs always makes my bullcrap meter go off the charts. Why is it taking 6-8 years? And in 9 years if it's still losing money what then?
Re:Double speak... (Score:2)
Good luck (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll notice in college classes today that large freshman English and Literature classes use something called the "Mercury Reader" which is a customized collection of stories that costs about $40. The publishers encourage instructors to swap out stories every year. (Killing the used book market)
I taught a English 101 class a couple of years ago and was forced to use it. My students went and spent $40 for works that are in the public domain! They could have easily purchased four or five Dover Thrift Editions for $8-10, or bought used books for less.
Good idea... Unfortunately teachers won't buy it (Score:2)
I've brought this up with several teachers, and there are those teachers that need the structure that a textbook supplies. I've crunched the numbers in my school district, where it would be economically feasible to outfit all the students 6-12 with a laptop and pay some teachers to come in over the summer and create the coursework for the upcoming year. Not well received. This is too early... Maybe in 5 years, or with the production of a cheap ebook.
For this to be successful, it needs to be patterned after
Re:Good idea... Unfortunately teachers won't buy i (Score:2)
K12 reform is complex and mysterious (Score:3, Informative)
affecting politicians and also publishers.
I advised Sun Micro on California ed. projects
and learned K12 reform is complex & mysterious.
I learned that real power is seldom with the politicians,
saving money is seldom sufficient motivation to change,
and state departments and teachers are critical allies.
Feel free to contact me if you need web hosting;
I can give it for free to educational projects.
Cheers, Joel - joel@school.net
MIT OCW (Score:2)
Their strategy [mit.edu] seems well thought out and could be a model for other similar efforts. I seem to remember that it's going to cost them on the order of $100 million to achieve their goal of _all_ MIT course material online.
Can it get much worse? (Score:1)
After spending years finding grammatical errors in the English books, statistical and chronological errors in the history books, and mathematical errors in the math books, can it get any worse?P
Schools are a very deeply rooted in old school ways. It is going to take a long time, and a lot of baby steps to bring them to where people will be happy with them and also be effective. If open sourced books can bring some better quality and save some money, while opening schools up to the idea of a different way t
more details? (Score:2)
My own books are aimed at the
California schools have worse problems... (Score:2)
It was a good idea. It would help to hold students responsible for their own grades, and make a diploma mean something -- not that you were just passes because you play water polo, or because the teacher didn't want to deal with you again.
We
Great Website (Score:1)
Thanks for the comments so far - and some answers (Score:4, Informative)
Currently, California creates a 'framework' for every K-12 topic (or general area, like language development). Commercial publishers then take those frameworks and build content around them. Open source authors could do the same thing. If the state employed those authors, or contracted them, so much the better.
The final step for text approval is through the State Board of Education text selection committee. Books that pass muster are then permitted for adoption by districts.
Open source textbooks would *have* to honor the framework documents to get through peer approval within the state board - that's a given. Thus, all materials have to meet a framework requirement. However, that's what the publishers currently have to do anyway. There's no reason the State itself, by adding some curriculum experts/outside contractors to do the appropriate filtering and writing, could not publish its own K-12 books.
I spent 15 years in the textbook publishing industry; thus, I can speak with some authority on this issue.
The economics of open source textbook publishing are a 'no brainer'. We're looking at the State self-publishing, and then reverse licensing content. There are *immediate* savings (this is easily shown) on the front end (marketing, rotalty and inventory costs), and licensing revenue on the back end.
Almost half the price of a K-12 book comes from marketing costs, royalties, and inefficient warehousing.
Further savings are realized down the road - say 10 years - when portable devices in the classroom are ubiquitous. If states don't get control of content, can you imagine little Johnny or Jane streaming the Preamble of the Constitution and paying Prentice Hall a micropayment for the privilege? That's where we're heading if states don't get control of content in their respective educational envronments.
As for the increased costs of textbooks, there's no reason this should be happening. Publishers manage to keep the cost of trade books down...why not textbooks? It's a fact that some publishers offer *the very same* university level textbooks (also outrageously priced) overseas, printed on cheaper paper, for a fraction of the going price in North America).
Open source textbook publishing is not rocket science, or obscure, as a publishing model. It *will* happen, and it's only a metter of time.
I will admit that this model may be just a tad ahead of where the market, or educational bureaucratic sensibilities, are at the moment.
Consider what cost-plus licensing of this material (and the process) to other states would mean - i.e. *billions* of dollars saved, and put back into parts of our state educational systems that need it most.
Another query had to do with why legislation would be required to start something liek this.
California used to publish its own textbooks back in the 50's. They were pretty awful. The reason for this was that there was no distributed source of information, or people, that could work on books; they (the books) were penned by just one or two authors. That situation has changed. We now have the internet, digital media, etc., etc.. There is no excuse for not looking into this aggressively, publishing a single curricular area as a pilot, and taking it from there.
The state legislated itself out of the publishing business in the early 50's, and gave the power to publish K-12 material to private enterprise. Thus, it would have to legislate itself back into the publishing 'business'.
Again, thanks for all your considered comments. We will be adding more information and updates to our site as we progress; we're in this for the long haul, until it's a reality.
Please feel free to write with ideas. We can be sourced from our web site. http://www.opensourcetext.org