Sun Founders' Push For Open Source Education

theodp writes "Unfortunately for textbook publishers, Scott McNealy has some extra time on his hands since Oracle acquired Sun and put him out of a job. The Sun co-founder has turned his attention to the problem of math textbooks, the price of which keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same. 'Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,' McNealy quips. 'We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks' in the US, he adds. 'It seems to me we could put that all online for free.' McNealy's Curriki is an online hub for free textbooks and other course material. Others hoping to bring elements of the Open Source model to the school textbook world include Vinod Khosla (who co-founded Sun with McNealy), whose wife Neeru heads up the CK-12 Foundation, which has already developed nine of the core textbooks for high school."

Comments

But wait...

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

That would make it much harder for me, as an educator, to require my students to use a textbook written by one of my colleagues, who just happens to require his students to use the textbook I wrote (because, of course, it would be unethical to require your students to purchase your own textbook.

Once we have that tidy arrangement going, we merely have to make minor changes to the texts (new pictures - you know, the important stuff), and then obsolete the previous editions.

Mr. McNealy, you already got your payday - why are you trying to prevent me from getting mine?

Re:But wait...

[jd]

If the pay was too low --- ummm, the pay isn't a hell of a lot more than burger-flippers get, for many teaching jobs. My first professional software engineering job paid more than my father's senior lecturer job at one of Britain's top Universities. Difference? He wanted to teach and he wanted to research. Those were his life-blood. When he retired (and he only semi-retired at that) he continued teaching and researching, just on his own time and out of his own house. Most people thought he'd die rather than quit. His final research papers went up online less than a month before he died of cancer.

Someone like that is not going to "work somewhere else" if they get paid too little. If they can keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, the rest of the world be damned. They're going to stay at what they love. And when it comes to something like teaching - unlike any other profession on Earth - that is an attitude that deserves respect, because that is the only attitude that can survive the stress, the politics, the noise, the abuse from those who complain teachers are all whiners, etc, ad nausium. It's the kind of attitude that allows one to teach and teach well, no matter what.

The reason a lot of modern teachers are crappy is that they do NOT have that attitude. They're in there to pick up a paycheck and keep their backsides (and the rest of their anatomy) covered from lawsuits. Those are not interested in teaching, but frankly they can't go out and get anything else either. They don't have the ability.

And that's the crux of it. Teachers are either damn good and pay is immaterial, or they're no good and pay is whatever they can get.

Re:But wait...

[jd]

Depends on how you define "enough" and "filled". Classrooms are often understaffed and a healthy teacher getting good nutrition and good access to fresh material will teach better than an unhealthy teacher who survives on Burger King and hasn't seen a new idea in a decade.

I have a preference for a well-educated populace, with "well-educated" being defined as being the least-educated can function well in multiple branches of society (ie: nobody is deprived of a choice in life through circumstance), the average person has the ability to get into a middle-of-the-road University, and the brightest person is never deprived of the opportunity to learn, with the additional proviso that all people have the necessary knowledge, skills and means to make choices that are sensible for them if they so wish.

It is impossible to have a well-educated populace if you work purely on paying the least that will fill fewest positions you can get away with. In fact, it's almost impossible to educate people at all like that. It is impossible to have a well-educated populace if you work purely on paying the least but have just enough positions to actually teach sensibly. You will, however, likely get the least-able and even some of the average-able up to par.

It's not just math books

[DesScorp]

The whole textbook business is one of the biggest scams in education, and it only gets worse in college. New editions are churned out for the college market simply to ensure a fresh revenue stream for all involved. I think in 95% of math, science, lit, and history courses, you could go to Dover Publishers (the people that basically make their living reprinting stuff in the public domain), get the books in paperback, and actually get better textbooks in the end. I have a weird hobby of collecting pre-1950 textbooks, and frankly I think kids learned "more" back then from their textbooks than they do today. Obviously, some knowledge has been added here and there, but I've got an 8th grade science textbook that does a much better job imparting the principles of physics and chemistry to kids because of the practical examples used.

I have to disagree with McNealy's push to go all-online though. There's no substitute for having a physical book at times. We just need to get off of the "new textbook" gravy-train.

Re:It's not just math books

[kappa962]

I think it's a lot more than a difference of culture. You'll notice a sharp decline in textbook quality after the launch of Sputnik. Sputnik freaked out Americans, so they started pumping loads of money into revamping math and science education. Money, unfortunately is not the main thing that makes a good textbook. Basically, after Sputnik, for some reason, it became necessary to cram as much set theory into every single math book as possible, whether it needed it or not.

Re:It's not just math books

[turing_m]

I have to disagree with McNealy's push to go all-online though. There's no substitute for having a physical book at times. We just need to get off of the "new textbook" gravy-train.

That's what printers are for. I suppose you could also get a more rugged book produced by getting it done at a print shop. But a manilla folder of printouts would accomplish the same thing, really.

The other benefit of going open source is that bugs can get fixed very easily. And the number of people capable of fixing spelling and grammatical error is greater than the number of people who can fix programming errors. Perhaps.

Re:It's not just math books

[Hognoxious]

But, consider that as you go back in time you find fewer people in school as a proportion of the population. Which means that (a) they were probably the smarter ones, a tranche we would now label as A or B students

You think society has been as egalitarian and meritocratic in the past[1] as it is now? Are you seriously suggesting that in 1830 an inherently smart slum kid has a much chance of getting into Oxford as the slightly inbred son of a baronet?

If so, you're a fucking twerp.

[1] By "the past" I mean roughly a generation ago. On shorter timescales it probably is - in the USA and UK at least, to our mutual shame - less so.

Re:It's not just math books

[bcrowell]

In my opinion, the NY Times article focuses mostly on aspects of the free textbook movement that have been the least successful. It focuses on K-12, but actually there are very few high-quality, free K-12 textbooks; most of the high-quality, free texts are at the college level, and especially at the graduate level. This is probably partly because the opportunities for profit in a non-free book get thinner and thinner as you go to higher and higher levels, and also partly because most states' public K-12 systems have very restrictive requirements for textbooks, which make it virtually impossible for the schools to adopt free books. I've written some free physics textbooks, which are college level. I do have a bunch of high school adoptions, but those are almost 100% from private high schools, mainly Catholic schools.

Another thing the article focuses on is group-organized efforts such as Curriki and CK-12. If you look at the free textbooks that are out there (see my sig), the vast majority are purely individual efforts.

I have a weird hobby of collecting pre-1950 textbooks, and frankly I think kids learned "more" back then from their textbooks than they do today.

I share your idiosyncrasy. I have a fairly big collection of old physics textbooks, mostly college-level books from the 20's and 30's. Actually IMO they're far worse than today's textbooks. They have a lot of detailed diagrams of devices like butter churns and arc lights, but the underlying concepts are very poorly developed.

Re:CK12.org - Probability and Stastics - nice book

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is VERY important that there be more than one textbook for each topic-grade level combination.

Competition will be important for:

* Quality
* Differing viewpoints
* Different teaching styles
* etc.

Re:Information...

[HungryHobo]

This one's sat at the back of my mind ever since I read Feynmans account of reviewing math books.

I mean for some things like history every country/area would want significantly different books to focus on local history etc but how is it that basic math books haven't been supplanted by a handful of public domain high quality books?
of course I know the answer is that companies making thin margins printing public domain books don't have so much money to spend on guys in suits to go around and convince the people in charge to use their textbooks.

I know how terrible some of the schoolbooks are yet they get chosen by schools year after year.

Re:CK12.org - Probability and Stastics - nice book

[king neckbeard]

Indeed. Half of the reason book prices are so outrageous is because students for all practical purposes have to get the same book the professor demands. If I could shop around, I could get much better prices.

Authors could still be paid ...

[JoeBuck]

If a school district decides to commission a textbook as a work made for hire, and pays the authors handsomely, and then makes the work free, it can be a win-win. The authors get a guaranteed amount, but they won't collect royalties going forward. The schools don't go broke buying expensive textbooks, and poorer districts can benefit. Textbook writers can be booked again when revisions are made. Of course, it will be possible to identify people that make less money. That's life.

Japan has a good model

[rolfwind]

at least in school (can't speak for higher education). The have softcover booklets, with about 8-10 weeks worth of material. That means they are about 100 pages long, maybe shorter. Plus, they contain the practice problems and you can write in them. I never understood the practice of carry these heavy tomes called textbooks around, especially even after a year, that half of it is never relevant to the course in many instances. You also get to keep the booklets and don't have to go through the nonsense of putting covers on them or otherwise.

As for online books, I always thought wikibooks was a worthy effort:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

But people aren't as eager to write textbooks/practice problems as they are to make articles about their obsession. I wish Wikimedia Foundation made use of their mature efforts like Wikipedia and allowed a single banner ad per page (clearly labeled as sponsor, offer a no-ad subscriber version) and then funnel the money toward immature efforts such as these.

Re:Japan has a good model

[martin-boundary]

I never understood the practice of carry these heavy tomes called textbooks around, especially even after a year, that half of it is never relevant to the course in many instances.

Heavy, well made textbooks last longer. So in the old days, kids could inherit their older sister's textbook, who inherited it from her older brother etc., or in fact communal textbooks could be kept by the school and distributed to the same grade year in, year out.

Re:CK12.org - Probability and Stastics - nice book

[Hognoxious]

Indeed, one of my pals used to say that the best book on any subject is two books.