Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar announced today that he plans to cut costs to public education by starting an open source textbook initiative. As an open source project, the textbooks would be kept up to date, eliminated the necessity of investing in new textbooks every few years. This in turn allows schools to save a fortune. But perhaps the most important componenent of plans for books that can be used across all public schools in the state of california is the standardization of education it brings along with it.
One of the biggest problems with education in the United States is that educational issues are decided at a local level, teaching students radically different things even within a single stte. For example, it was not so long ago in 2005 that the state of Kansas held hearings organized by the Christian Board of Education over how evolution should be taught in schools. In less conservative places such as New York City and California, evolution has been taught for years without fail. To readers from outside the US, this must sound hopelessly backwards, yet this is one of the byproducts of not having any real requirement for education.
Idealy, if Mr. Schwarzennegar’s project is successful, the open source textbook movement would expand to other states. Initially, the texts used would probably vary from state to state, though that would change over time. It is far easier for 50 states to work together to maintain one textbook per subject than it is for each state to create its own textbook. Still, even just having state oversight of which texts are used in schools would help to breathe some life into the dire American educational system.
