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Brown Signs California Bill For Free Textbooks
bcrowell writes "California Governor Jerry Brown has signed SB 1052 and 1053, authored by state senator Darrell Steinberg, to create free textbooks for 50 core lower-division college courses. SB 1052 creates a California Open Education Resources Council, made up of faculty from the UC, Cal State, and community college systems. The council is supposed to pick 50 core courses. They are then to establish a 'competitive request-for-proposal process in which faculty members, publishers, and other interested parties would apply for funds to produce, in 2013, 50 high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials, meeting specified requirements.' The bill doesn't become operative unless the legislature funds it — a questionable process in California's current political situation. The books could be either newly produced (which seems unlikely, given the 1-year time frame stated) or existing ones that the state would buy or have free access to. Unlike former Gov. Schwarzenegger's failed K-12 free textbook program, this one specifically defines what it means by 'open source,' rather than using the term as a feel-good phrase; books have to be under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-SA?) license, in XML format. They're supposed to be modularized and conform to state and W3C accessibility guidelines. Faculty would not be required to use the free books."
"Faculty would not be required to use the free books"
With this one phrase, the entire idea is rendered useless. Why bother with free textbooks for college level classes if no college will offer classes that use them for coursework? The state will pay for the development, sure... like California can really pay for anything else...
It doesn't become active until the legislature funds it? How free is that? Perhaps some experts on the subjects in question could volunteer time to write intro level textbooks (with the idea of writing advanced books for sale)? That would be "free". Seriously, the use of the word free is much abused lately, much like spending cuts have long since meant less increases in spending.
200$ laptops even with replacements over the years are cheaper than 10,000$ in books for k-12.
They should do studies with some kids to see if they learn as good on a computer as a book.
Once this data is compiled, throw in some educational aps too, and you're probably beating what you can get on just books alone.
God spoke to me
I have a feeling the committee may strangle it, unless they are very carefully chosen as people who can work together.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How long until the textbook industry sues California for unfair competition?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sections 1 and 2 of this act shall become operative only if funding for the purposes of this act is provided in an appropriation in the annual Budget Act or another statute, or through federal or private funds, or through a combination of state, federal, and private funds.
Well, I had my hopes up for a second, anyway.
It will be a one-time cost for writing or converting the books, and a small yearly cost of updating them, instead of a yearly high cost for buying them from Texas. It is going to save quite a lot of money, but I'm sure the Book Mafia will successfully lobby this out of existence.
If these are "free textbooks," why does the legislature have to fund it?
How about we be honest, eh? No one is providing "free" textbooks. No one is volunteering to create these things and give them away. The taxpayers will be forced to pay for these books rather than their actual users.
Liberty in your lifetime
They could use the books already on Wikibooks ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page ) as a starting point.
I wonder if the open-source books they will produce will break away from the paper textbook paradigm (linear text+static images)? The one I am writing ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Methods ) is heavily hyperlinked, I've included a spreadsheet and expect to include other media, am working on a resource library ( http://www.mediafire.com/?y1ko8gj5rouob ), and the concept of "class projects" (design studies) which become part of the book.
From the savings of lower education costs.
Learn to love Alaska
I have never understood this business. Not much has changed in say basic trig or geometry in 100 years. In that time basic subject textbooks should have been whittled down to two or three that are simply the best. But somehow there is different textbooks in nearly every school system in North America; yet a school system in SoCal should be able to use the same textbook as in Maine. The textbook companies have somehow convinced every schoolboard that they should tailor the books to match their exact curriculum. This gives the schoolboards a warm and fuzzy feeling while they set up approval commities, training sessions, etc for the new books. Yet these books add up to a huge percentage of the budget.
My two daughters have nearly useless textbooks year after year which their teachers just don't use. They will have questions like: "Write down all the ways 10 numbered marbles can be put into 5 lettered bags." Holy crap do these people even have a basic understanding of math.
It is not just ebooks that can replace these dinosaurs but cool online videos.
Bye bye massively commissioned textbook sales people.
At least it should be cheaper and available sooner than the no-longer-bullet train we're supposedly getting in the next 30 years. Aw, who am I kidding?
Anyway, I'm currently attending a California city college, and I've attended state university before. In my experience, many professors (especially at the city college level, where average incomes are lower) are concerned about textbook prices. They put them in the library reserve for students to use, they allow you to use previous editions, and they'll even look for cheaper alternatives. My current professors also claim they do not receive commission for textbook sales, and that the school essentially breaks even on textbook sales once you consider the costs of running the bookstore.
In the past, many of my computer science courses had complimentary eBooks available online. This year, two of my classes have eBook versions available via CourseSmart which, while cheaper than physical textbooks, can't be used on dedicated eReaders (currently computer, iOS, and Android, with Android devices being limited somehow). They also have the issue of essentially being rentals instead of outright purchases--but still, it's better than nothing.
Finally, two professors I had a while back decided that the existing course books were too expensive, so they wrote their own books and sold them for $10 and $30. Yeah, they obviously get a commission there, but that's better than paying $150.
I imagine there are other schools that are much worse than my personal experiences, but it isn't all bad.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Its still being paid for by tax dollars, but at least there is no additional fee to the parents, unless of course you have nothing to view them on.. so 'free' e-ink for all..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Don't all colleges now include wifi access in the tuition price?
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Glad you admit you're dumb. You have internet access at school. And you don't even need it - the teacher will surely have it available for direct download, to ensure that the students all get the book and the right one.
That is, if this would ever take off. It won't, because the Texan Book Mafia will never allow this to happen.
Not even a blip. Its 'optional' to use them. Publishers and professors will continue the scam they are running for the foreseeable future.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Frankly, elementary school lessons don't change that much from one year to the next. The current textbooks my child uses are incredibly simple, and they contain pretty timeless lessons. If someone was to take a textbook from 50 or 70 years ago that was out of copyright, they could easily make it available to all schools to use, or they could copy relevant sections from many books to make a single "First Grade Math Book" or "Second Grade English Book".
Doing so would eliminate a HUGE amount of the cost of school. When you see how much a school spends on textbooks, you'll be bowled over. The latest textbooks I've seen have basically one sentence of text per page, accompanied with huge, two page spread art pictures - totally worthless and a waste of space. Even "See Spot Run" had more than one sentence per page.
Stop our schools from spending money on stuff that doesn't matter. The textbooks aren't going to make our kids smart. Time with a teacher will.
Maybe I'm old school, but I'd rather study from a textbook than a screen. Maybe someone could invent a portable device where I can read books where the text resembles electronic ink? And there can be an electronic marketplace where you can buy these books! Hopefully this post can kindle a few ideas..
The next generation.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
When my wife was taking math classes a few years ago, one of her professors had written his own text book and gave it away for free as a pdf to anyone, including other schools and teachers, who wanted it. He thought it was such a waste for the students to be forced to buy a $120 book they use once and then get $18 back for it, then see it resold for $86.
Thought process #1: The cost of the average college textbook is closer to $200 than it is to $20.
Thought process #2: Lots of places these days offer this new-fangled thing called "Free Wifi". Ask your local Starbucks or McDonalds about it.
I'm not super well-versed in my eBook formats, but I was under the impression that the common formats, such as ePub and MOBI/AZW, use combinations of XML (such as ePub's manifest files) and HTML. From the summary, it sounds as if this is yet another eBook format we'll have to contend with, which won't be supported by the popular eReaders out there.
When I say I want an eBook, I mean I want to be able to read it on my Kindle or Nook. E-Ink, not LCD. It seems to me that the best option would be to follow the Project Gutenberg model and provide pure HTML, ePub, MOBI, and other common formats. Yes, since it's "open source" we will probably be able to convert the books, but how many people are going to know how to do that?
If you can't convince them, convict them.
If there was a site where students could post textbooks for trade locally by city or campus, they could at least put a hurting on the school store buyback racket.
Why rewrite and re-revise 1500 high-level calculus homework questions when thousands of these have already been published over and over and over and over? There's an easy solution: use old ones.
I'm not so sure about that. If they can actually produce a QUALITY textbook there should be no reason to use 3rd party books at all.
They don't even need to lobby it, most professors simply won't switch to them for any of their classes. Publishers offer far too many incentives that make the professors job easier while also helping to tie them down to that publisher.
Download it while you're at the university.
if I cant afford a $20 textbook, how can I afford a $60 internet bill for the e-books? Another Brown thought process.
I've heard tales, from the very oldest days, of people transferring bits between computers on various forms of 'removable media'. Apparently, this curious custom does not require internet access!
What 3rd party? Half the time, the professor wrote the book in the first place, the other half the publisher provides kickbacks.
"Yes, since it's 'open source' we will probably be able to convert the books, but how many people are going to know how to do that?"
There need be only one!
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
That, and the going rate for a 4GB flash drive(from somebody you've heard of, even, is about $6, less if you catch a sale). If you don't want the convenience of rewriteable media, an optical disk costs maybe a nickel or two.
Nothing requires the textbooks to be provided to students exclusively electronically or, even when electronically, exclusively over the internet. And core textbooks are rarely $20 -- more like $60+.
Open source licensing means that the institutions (individually or together) can customize the books, and provide them free electronically and, if they want, have them printed and sell them to students at a cost that covers the cost of printing without any publisher markup.
Have you seen the fnords?
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Actually, over $617 billion as of August. And the same place the U.S. government gets money from, despite being $16 trillion dollars in debt.
This is ridiculous.
I moved to California a year ago to be with my wife will she attends grad school and I have been appalled at the insanity that regularly occurs in this state as compared to anywhere the East coast.
1) Freely available educational material is fantastic.
2) Having the government pay for freely available educational material that will not necessarily be used by the college courses they are intended for is bad.
3) Forcing professors to use the state-sponsored books would be even worse. The Government can't get anything right, so I certainly wouldn't want some bureaucrat deciding what books were going to be used in a course I was taking.
4) This state doesn't need to spend any more money on anything. Period. They need to get their spending under control before trying to enhance things. 10%+ sales tax? Very bad! And I can hardly wait to see my income taxes for the past year.
Summary:
This is a terrible idea. The CA state government needs to start thinking about NOT defaulting rather than blowing money on ridiculous schemes with no payoff.
There are already some freely available texts anyway, from programs pioneered by top universities. Why not incentivize things like that rather than trying to take more under the government umbrella?
As one might expect Slashdot users to know (well, maybe not) "free" is often used to refer to certain liberal licensing terms ("libre") rather than free-of-charge ("gratis").
Although -- no doubt much to Richard Stallman's chagrin -- the law itself actually uses the term "open source" rather than "free".
So what's a poor textbook company supposed to do now? Oh, I know, pay teachers to choose my textbooks and ignore the free ones!
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
While the LA Times uses the word "free", the actual law in question uses the term "open source".
Of course, once the State acquires open source textbooks, its pretty easy to also make copies available free-of-charge.
So what you're saying is California gets it's money from California, the same place the US government gets it.
Free open source California textbooks unavailable for download due to bogus DMCA takedown notices from Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan.
You obviously don't think things through. Tea party?
First of all, the State of California buys an awful lot of those expensive textbooks, and would reap the savings almost immediately.
Secondly, if it makes education less expensive, it will likely lead to more educated people. People who can afford to pay taxes and your social security.
I think there's a problem. They'll be up against financisl support for public universities in California.
Finally, two professors I had a while back decided that the existing course books were too expensive, so they wrote their own books and sold them for $10 and $30. Yeah, they obviously get a commission there, but that's better than paying $150.
If those are hard copies, it sounds like that basically just paid for the print and/or publication costs. Either way, it's a good deal. I had a professor who told us buying the official book was "optional" (aka not used), and uploaded his 400 pages of "notes" on his website, which we followed throughout the semester. I thought that was a pretty decent way to do it.
Unless, of course, it is free labor. That is just simply free for the taking. And if it is labor that was promised to be compensated for, but was instead not paid for, then even better. Right? After all, those lower class peons owe their labor to the captains of industry - it is only through their own grace that they get paid at all as we all know they are in no way deserving of it.
The citizens have yet to use the referendum and vote process to place politician's jobs and retirements in jeopardy when the budget won't balance. Really May i give you Ex Governor Gray Davis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Davis
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
Oh the one that is mostly paid for by Private funding, the one that would create thousands of jobs, and give back millions of dollars in taxes a year...yeah that one
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
Couple years ago, we outsourced our bookstore to Barnes and Noble, because we simply could not afford running it any more. We kept sinking money into it semester after semester. Large booksellers are better equipped to handle the "sell large amount of textbooks at the beginning of each semester and then keep the remaining copies around in a storage, sending the ones that will not be needed next semester back to the publisher, buying book back from students at the end of the semester, and getting ready for the new semester" cycle.
As far as professors writing their own course materials, that fairly common. Typically, these are sold for the cost of printing and binding. I have never seen a professor actually getting any money for these. The main problem is that it takes time, and at our college, with our teaching load, service, and need to keep current in the field, there is very little time for writing these. I have been working on a textbook like that for one of my classes for several years, and I am nowhere near finishing.
AccountKiller
such as the impact on the quality of the resulting textbooks
Yes, we definitely should stop this insanity right now! There is a chance that the textbooks thus produced will be of low quality! The humankind would definitely not be able to survive that!
Actually, I think we will survive just fine, considering that we are currently surviving a huge ammount of incredibly shitty textbooks from our major publishers.
AccountKiller
most professors simply won't switch to them for any of their classes. Publishers offer far too many incentives that make the professors job easier while also helping to tie them down to that publisher.
May I inquire WTF you are talking about??
I _am_ a professor at an accredited 4-year University, and the biggest incentive I get is a free book for review (that is nice, but hardly mind-bending). There are no kickbacks, incentives or anything of the sort.
Perhaps if one had assigned their own book (I haven't written any), but certainly not for any book.
This may not necessarily ah
At larger state schools, many teachers write their own books, update them every two years, and mandate their use in their class.
While I do agree that requiring faculty to use the free books is dangerous, take a look at it from the professor's point of view. One of my professors in my paralegal program freely spoke to us about the process of choosing textbooks. He basically said that the majority of textbooks out there on a given topic are the same. Occasionally, there'll be a standout book but his general thought was that no book was perfect - that is, books that cover one area of the subject well tend to lack in other areas. Thus, when he chooses a textbook for a course, the "teacher perks" end up being about as large a factor as the actual content of the book itself... things like question bank, supplemental materials, online materials and support, etc. Thus, if there are going to be free textbooks, there'll have to be adequate corresponding teacher support materials to go along with it... b/c, let's face it, the majority of college professors are used to having access to test banks and whatnot. Without this, I don't think teachers would have an incentive to adopt, no matter what the cost.
Most professors don't write their own textbooks. A few do.
I think that in my entire time in college and graduate school, I only had two professors with their own books. One of these was a workbook and was cheap.
My wife is a college professor and constantly whinges about the high cost of textbooks. She would love to have free textbooks (and so would everyone in her department... none of them have written textbooks.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
That is the usual line used by those promoting a major league sports stadium, but reality tells a different story. Pro sports hardly ever deliver the benefits that their backers promise, and in any case most cities just give any economic benefits right back to the team owners in the form of free stadiums and huge tax breaks.
Additionally, no NFL team has ever been successful in the LA area and none ever will be. What few NFL fans there are in LA are already die-hard fans of other teams. LA douchebags have Laker and Dodger games to see and be seen at; they don't need an NFL team.
This proves once and for all that there is no adult supervision in California government.
But the course material is virtually identical for all states.
If all states got involved there would be 50 times the budget!
By using similar systems to those used by software development you could allow a teacher to download the source tree, edit as desired and let students download the nightly build.
You could even make a branch for the religious fanatic states, where they can add intelligent design or whatever, no reason to not take their money.
With some organization you could make it easy for any teacher or parent to select chapters from a given book.
I don't see why California has to go it alone. All states, one tree, each state or school or teacher can select the parts of it they need while contributing to the development.
But it makes things *appear* that way long enough to get (re)elected, especially when Peter hasn't been born yet and can't voice objections and Paul isn't bright enough or doesn't care enough to understand why any of it even matters or why they should care.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
In my university (Edinburgh, Scotland), I was in classes several classes where the lecturer had written the book. I could have cried "scam" -- or I could feel privileged that I was studying with genuinely world-class scholars. Perhaps it's different in the US? Except, no, it can't be, because one of my lecturers (OO software design) apologised that her book was written in US English, not UK English, because there was a bigger market for it in the US than the UK. It seems like lots of US professors were using her textbook... because it was the best thing on the market.
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It's called "economy of scale". The state of California as a corporate body has far more bargaining power than an individual student. This means they can set the price they pay. The cost to them will be significantly lower than the total cost of individual purchases. For the author it's better too, because there's a guaranteed, pre-negotiated price as work-for-hire, rather than the uncertainty of royalties depending on uptake by the universities. The only people it's bad for are academic publishing companies, and given some of their antics, I'm not going to lose sleep over a publishing mogul buying one less ivory back-scratcher come Christmas....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Son, you have no understanding of the U.S. monetary system. The federal reserve can increase the money supply, they are an independent agency, independent of the other three branches. However, they are constrained in how much they can ease the money supply. Beyond a certain level, it creates an inflation and the fed is has two mandates, keep inflation low and keep employment high.
Social security is a trust fund...kind of. The U.S. government is not allowed to "store" money in a trust fund and you wouldn't want them to because it would be sucking money out of the economy. So the rest of the government writes IOUs to spend the money you and your employer send in for SS. Remember that eye-watering number known as the federal debt? The really BIG number? Well, consider that your SS trust fund. What, you say, you mean the government hasn't been squirreling away our SS money under a giant mattress? No, young Grasshopper, it's been spending it like a drunken sailor. You have approximately squat...well, actually negative squat since you and the rest of us are on the hook for that money.
And where will a good chunk of that money go to when we finally cough it up? Why, the Me Generation. It turns out the Me Generation has also been spending like drunken sailors and not saving for retirement. So the Blue Hairs will be demanding their cut which will turn out to be several times more than they ever paid in. Are you going to tell Granny she can't have yours? Do you want to make her day? She can come to live with you since you won't be able to afford the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed and will demand the government provide.
And before you get all highly outraged over whatever you are referring to as the mafia-style protection racket, let us not forget that you, Grasshopper, have helped spend America into the toilet. Now stop whining, gird your loins, and start paying for all those government benefits you have been demanding your congress guy/gal produce for "the people". Oh, and stop thinking you are going to take it out of the military. They only get 3 percent or less of GDP and less than a 1/3 of the budget. The rest of the discretionary spending (total disc. sp. is about 1/3 of the budget) covers neat things like NIH, FAA, etc., the part of the government that works. The other 2/3 covers Entitlements. You believe in those, right? The ones that are about to explode in cost because the Me Generation is starting to retire in droves. And if you think of taking all the military's funding, you still are about $400-500 Billion short of covering this years deficit, so you won't be paying down the debt with it either.
Grasshopper, so young, so pointy-headed, so innocent. Grow the fuck up.
Not only should all states be funding open-source textbooks, they should really start with the K-12 space.
Schools in our country spend insane amounts of money buying very expensive textbooks again and again, in spite of the fact that the topics they cover haven't changed significantly centuries. Most elementary schools save money by not allowing the books to leave the classroom, ever, and even secondary schools have to put a lot of effort into trying to reuse books year over year, which changes how students use the books. In addition to all of that, when errors are discovered or (rare) changes in subject matter crop up, there is no way to correct them except by shelling out another $50-75 per text, per student.
The content for all of this basic education material should be in the public domain, freely available for anyone to use in whatever way they like. If hardcover, bound copies are useful then schools (or states) should hire publishers to print them, on a competitive basis. If Kinko's can provide a comparable product at a lower price than Houghton-Mifflin, then Kinko's gets the contract. This would reduce the per-text price from $50+ to around $5. At that price, every student can have their own copy to use and abuse and keep or recycle, as they like.
Or, if teachers find it more useful to have their students use the material in electronic form, or to print off selected subsets of the material to hand out on a periodic basis, or... whatever, it can be done in whatever way makes the most sense for the context.
And all of this could be accomplished if states only diverted a small fraction of the money they currently spend on buying expensive textbooks to hiring good education authors to write them on a for-hire basis. This has been obvious for at least 20 years.
Why hasn't it happened? Actually, it has... but not in the official education establishment. The home-schooling community has developed tons of great, low-cost educational materials. Much of it is open source, and much of the rest includes specific permission to make copies as needed for educational purposes. Why hasn't it happened in public school bureaucracies? IMO, it's because their centralization and subservience to political structures has left them open to manipulation by people with vested interest in the status quo.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
And as always, there is nothing more expensive than something that government supposedly gives you "for free".
Nonsense. Privatisation of public services always ends up costing more. Electricity, water, gas, phones, buses, trains -- they all cost more in total now that they're private enterprises. Education is cheaper overall in countries where the government pays. Healthcare is cheaper where the government pays. Your ideology may disagree, but reality trumps ideology.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Where the money came from is irrelevant to the total spent. Unless you are just some nutcase that likes to push the "taxes are robbery at gunpoint" stance every possible chance, even when irrelevant.
Learn to love Alaska
What is nonsense is your entire comment. Everything costs more when it is in the hands of government, not less. Phones? PHONES? Ha ha ha, yeah, with AT&T being the monopoly nobody could even own a phone. Today everybody has multiple cellphones.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
I will totally donate $100 to the Kickstarter for this one.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Other than the differences between elevators and lifts, hoods and bonnets, trunks and boots, trucks and lorries, station wagons and estate cars, shopping carts and trollies, and of course fish sticks and fish fingers, I'm not sure why US english would be difficult for UK speakers to deal with. Spellings can be different also of course, color vs colour, defense vs defence, etc, etc. But people still know what the words mean.
My ex is british and I spent a fair bit of time over there. I saw almost as much American programming on the TV (or telly) as I did native brit programming.
Your professor was silly to apologize as Brits are far more familiar with US English than we yanks are with UK English here across the pond.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Actually, before the internet hit the mainstream we were only really familiar with spoken US English -- not that many of us read in US English. Reading US English still often jars a little with me, and though you don't normally notice it in plain written prose, it can be quite marked when you're watching a film subtitled in US English. Even little things like a single L in "traveling" can be enough to break the flow of reading for me.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
First of all, the State of California buys an awful lot of those expensive textbooks, and would reap the savings almost immediately.
This would apply more to K-12 than to college, since college students pay for their own books. Schwarzenegger had a K-12 free textbook initiative similar to this, but it seems to have failed.
Secondly, if it makes education less expensive, it will likely lead to more educated people. People who can afford to pay taxes and your social security.
This may or may not be true. I don't think it's at all self-evident. There is a new book out, Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling, by David F. Labaree. I haven't read the book, but there is a review in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/cover-to-cover/309071/ . According to the review, Labaree argues that you can't use the public education system to promote equality, because the families that consume education are motivated by the desire to get ahead of other families. This suggests that educating more people will not lead to a greater number of affluent people who pay taxes, but will instead simply lead to more highly educated people doing the same jobs that used to be done by less educated people. I certainly see this at the community college where I teach. Nurses need bachelor's degrees now to be marketable, whereas they used to be fine with an AA degree. Physical therapists need graduate degrees (a DPT) for jobs that are shockingly low-paying.
Although the cost of textbooks is scandalously high, and extremely exploitative, I don't believe that their high costs reduces the number of people getting college educations. At the California community college where I teach, the bottleneck is that due to state budget cuts, not enough classes are being offered in order to satisfy demand. At four-year schools, even state schools, tuition is so much more money than books that I really don't believe there are people making a decision not to go to college based on the cost of books. At the time when they're making that decision, they don't even have information about how much their books will cost.
Find free books.
A very small percent of professors are using books they have written and I have been a professor for many years and have never been offered a kickback and or heard of anyone getting such an offer.
You are assuming that the Creative Commons textbooks will not include the same sorts of question banks, PowerPoint slides, and other extras that make them easy to use as those from commercial publishers, If that is the case, you are right -- most professors are busy and unwilling to spend extra time on teaching -- but it may not be the case. If by "incentives" you are thinking of bribes or kickbacks, you are either misinformed or paranoid.
No not bribes in any sort of monetary form, that would probably create too large of an outcry if it happened and was provable.
People may very well create the associated content for those books but unless the frame work for it is in the bill, good luck getting such extra content adopted by professors/universities/community colleges. Having pre-made tests/quizzes/homework available would be great but there is also the extra work of putting it in a format easily incorporated into existing front end systems. How easy would it be to import something like that into say, Blackboard?
Not to mention needing proper outside verification that the material is accurate and helpful.
Where as all of the above is already provided by publishers of existing text books, it's a long steep uphill battle to get these books adopted by professors.
The bill sets up a council of 9 faculty (from CSU, UC and Community Colleges) and they will be responsible for acquiring the books. If they acquire crappy books, faculty will not adopt them. If they do not offer enough to authors to entice them to produce typical ancillary material, faculty will not adopt them. The funds have not yet been allocated and I have no idea whether or not they will be sufficient to attact good, complete books. We will see. More detail at: http://cis471.blogspot.com/2012/10/governor-brown-signs-california-open_1.html.