Karl Wick:
Sanford,
Would it be feasible to take the work done on the US Constitution and Government and/or US History books and adapt it to fit the CA state standards in place of the World History Project ?
Daniel Ehrenberg:
I don't think we should focus on standards. It would be better to focus on making good textbooks. To be realistic, public schools would probably not use our books, but there is a chance that private schools or homeschoolers (the ones that don't use more radical methods) would use them. These groups don't particularly like books that were formulaically constructed around state standards.
I think that's a possibility. **As long as the framework standards are adhered to**, the book should pass California (and many other states) peer review. Note that the California frameworks are considered to be very progressive, and thorough, even by institutions that are outside the public school system, including home and private schools.
If you look at the frameworks for just about any course, they're really quite thorough. The beauty of open source content is that a lot more creativity and variety can be placed around state-approved curriculum frameworks. In this scenario, everyone wins. In fact, I know several home schoolers - both in and out of California - who use California K-12 textbook as part of their home-based curriculum.
Further, it's not at all accurate to say that home schoolers and private schools eschew state-approved books. I spent 15 years in the academic school book business; both home and private schools use "state-approved" books in very large numbers.
The whole idea behind the Wikipedia K-12 textbook project is to create open source K-12 textbooks. yes, it's well within the realm of possibility to create K-12 books that don't adhere to state frameworks. Personally, I think that would be a massive strategic mistake that leads to gross inefficiencies.
Sure, *some* private schools and some home schools might chose to use non-framework books; however, the *vast* amount of good that could be done by providing *better, cheaper, more flexible* content scenarios to *10's of millions* of students, worldwide, would be lost. We would not be able to use these materials in public schools. Millions of public school students would lose out - many of these students are from poor districts, which badly need quality content that is affordable.We also need to realize that the content created to state framework standards would be used by countries like India and China, who look to approved framework-standard materials in English to teach their students (many schools teach the native tongue, and English, simultaneously).
The argument for writing to a state framework standard is unassailable, especially in distributed, open, content environments. The fact is that is a book is written to a framework standard, it *will* be used by public institutions, and internationally. It *will* also be used by private and home schools (even some of the radical ones). Those private and home schools who want to variate Wikipedia K-12 content (picking and choosing and modifying what they want) would be able to do so, and/or add their own open source contributions to make it fit their exact needs. Thus, choosing to ignore state frameworks in this project severely reduces it's overall impact. Writing to state framework standards is clearly the only way to go, *if* we want to make the largest difference possible.
Let's do this project right, and create a K-12 textbook publishing revolution that makes a real difference, changes the way K-12 content is sourced and distributed, and sets an example - worldwide - that is nothing short of a gold standard.
Sanford