Texas public schools spent $1,200,000,000 per year on hard-bound textbooks per year. This cost is share between the State of Texas and school districts. The cost of textbook have risen approximately 6% per year since 1986 (inflation rate has been about 3% per year). These textbooks are inflexible and are normally out of date by the end of the purchase year. So what is the alternative?
Digital textbooks are available now from non-profit organization such as CK-12 Foundation (www.ck12.org).
CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the "FlexBook," CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning.
California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, released a report (Gov. Schwarzenegger Releases Free Digital Textbook Initiative Phase 1 Report) for digital textbooks on August 11, 2009. In the report, he summarize the advantages of using digital textbooks to reduce the cost to states and school districts.
The down side appears to be cost of computers and Internet service for students. There are inexpensive rugged computers for around $400 per student. The computer price would be a one-time cost to either the state and/or the school district. Internet service is now available in almost all public schools. At-home Internet service might not be required to accommodate most digital textbook applications.
The digital textbook plan for the State of Texas should include an equitable school trial. The trial should be setup for schools in low and high at-risk student population.
There are many advantages to initiate digital textbooks:
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Lower cost to state and school districts
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Easy to adapt to state standards and teacher generated curriculum
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No heavy textbooks for students to carry
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Using bluetooth interface, easy to download completed homework
No one yet knows the complete downside since a trial has not been done. Recognizing these advantages should facilitate a trial.
Comments
Actually, Texas already has digital textbooks and they are having success. About 400 school districts in Texas have adopted Pearson's enVisionMATH program, a digital and online learning system in addition to a textbook. In their first year using these new enVisionMATH digital textbooks, school districts such as Houston and Cypress-Fairbanks and Brownsville and others saw gains in TAKS math scores while the state average math scores actually fell this year.
Thank you for your comment, Mr. Abbott. I assume the enVisionMATH program is not free and can not be downloaded from the Internet. It also appears to be copyrighted. Is this correct?
I think this is a wonderful idea, but an e-reader would probably be better in terms of only allowing textbooks to be downloaded and no other sites to perused during class time...especially since warehouses full of unused textbooks are always being discovered (detroit) :( and would hopefully cut out the rising cost of schoolbooks(which is outrageous!)
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