Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Text-Books in California?
ebusinessmedia1 asks: "The California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) was created a few years ago in an attempt to help California's educational bureaucracy understand the value of open-sourced, K-12 textbook development, and we are an official collaborator with Creative Commons. COSTP could, within 6-8 years, save California up to $400M+ per year in K-12 textbook costs. (in addition to 100's-of-millions more saved in other states).
We're looking for further ideas on how we might push this forward, promote it through something like the Connexions Project http://cnx.rice.edu/ at Rice University, work with enlightened for-profits on an open-source K-12 textbook model, get a test piloted, or somehow get the project bumped up a notch, funded, etc. Ideas anyone?"
"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."
It won't work. There are already cheaper alternatives out there which are not used thanks to the massive marketing efforts (some might call them bribes) from the publishing companies to have teachers adopt the latest, most expensive textbook out (as if elementary mathematics or chemistry were changing from year to year).
Take a look at Everything2 or Wikipedia for examples of what is wrong with open source reference materials.
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.
Here is my tip (I just graduated from the california school system k-12), burn them all down and let's start building modern schools.
./revolution
It may work if there is the proper âoepushâ. My wifeâ(TM)s grandfather wrote college textbooks and childrenâ(TM)s books for a living and he made squat. Itâ(TM)s not the author who makes any money it is the publishers and the schools that see the majority of the profit. Also some of the âoeapprovedâ books chosen by the state areâ¦lacking in most information. I graduated from a California high school in â(TM)89, when I had a conversation with my wifeâ(TM)s sister about world war II history and I had to give a background on Pearl Harbor, as she had only a paragraph on it when she was taking US history. What really chapped my hide was she never heard of the USS Arizona. IMHO this is tragic. Any History profs/teachers that can add more info one way or the other please reply.
-- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
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?
The publishing industry is deeply rooted in the corrupt educational beuracracy and is gaining ground, if anything.
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.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
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 the Debian project. GPL the texts, and have hundreds or thousands of volunteers responsible for their own "package". The package could contain not only the text but graphics, software, movies, etc. Two problems to overcome: accuracy of the texts and getting the volunteers.
What, me worry?
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
Have you checked out the MIT OpenCourseWare?
Their strategy 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.
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 to do business, I am all for it.
Pretty Pictures!
Volunteers come easy in certain subjects. Anybody wanting to break into the field would have an incentive to add to their resume 'textbook publisher' and for the really boring stuff that has no advocacy group (and you'll be surprised how many subjects do have them) you simply pay people from countries with good educational infrastructure but lousy economies and low pay. You can get textbook writers for a few hundred a month a worker for all the hard sciences. Pay by the math problem if you like and set it at a nickel a problem.
My own books are aimed at the college level, but I do have some high school sales, too. However, I'll probably never sell any to high schools in states like California or Texas, which have centralized textbook adoption procedures -- that gets very political, and you need a serious sales force.
Find free books.
Problems like the graduation tests recently required for California high school seniors. The idea was that if you pass the test, you graduate with a diploma. If you don't pass the test, you get a certificate that basically says that you were there for all your classes.
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.
Well, California's State Superintendant of Public Education decided that we won't administer this test anymore, at least not with its current requirements, because too many students are failing.
My problem with that: The math component of the exam tests you at an 8th grade level...and you only need to get 50% of the questions right to pass. You only need to know half as much as an eighth grader should know to graduate high school???? And that's too hard?
My wife's younger sister took this test as a sophomore, and she studied her ass off for it, and she passed it! Did I mention that she's been diagnosed with learning disabilities? How is it fair to her that stupid-ass students who don't even try to learn (or at least to learn enough to past tests) get the same diploma she gets? She's clearly earned hers, they didn't, and shouldn't get one.
If I ever have children, they're definitely not going into these screwed up institutions they call public schools in California.
Have you all heard about a website called donorschoose.org? It's a website where teachers can list there educational needs (ex. a certain book) and if a donor is interested in donating then they click on the teacher they want and donate. How wonderful is that!!!
As impossible as this sounds, I think that the State should commission the creation of text books by private parties (individual, small groups, whichever), and then print and publish the books themselves.
"Hi, this is the Calif. Dept. of Education. We're wondering if you'd write us an 8th Grade Algebra text for $50,000."
The State will then basically turn the publishing part into a non-profit part of its education department. The books would be available in electronic form as well.
As was mentioned, Algebra et al hasn't changed dramatically. Pay the authors, and become its own middle man for publishing. Student missing a book? Have them read the chapter they're missing online. Or print it out for them. Let them print it out themselves. Whatever.
But the goal is to basically own the content and let the information be distributed as is most efficient. Bind it in long lasting hard back? Great. Cheap paper back? Fine. Have the teacher hand out each chapter as necessary, printed on the big laser printer in the school office?
A 500 page text book at 2 cents per page is $10. From a $1000 laser printer. Even less when duplexed. Far cry from $80.
If an author wants to make LOTS of money, he can sell his same book to each different State.
Thanks for your considered, and thoughtful responses
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
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
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.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare