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.
We should still keep our focus on making good
textbooks, even if that means deviating from the
standards in some cases. We should not delete or
summarize any existing content in accordance with the
framework.
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.
IANAFormer academic school book writer/seller, but
would it possible that this could be because most
textbooks are written according to standards? Even if
one standard is better than the others, most textbooks
are still written according these standards
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).
I don't think it's a certainty that these books will
be used just because they're approved.
Don't you think that foreign countries would want
textbooks written in simpler English?
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).
The radical ones use real books. I
think that's a lot
of what Wikibooks should be doing (not specifically
for the homeschoolers, though).
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
Let's be realistic: probably no wikibooks will be
printed, and if one is printed, it will be a
highly-edited and non-wikified, and this won't happen
for a while. I think that the goal of Wikibooks
shouldn't be centered around things like the
High-school extentions book, the programming
tutorials, and other things aimed at informal
self-study.
LDan
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