In some Philadelphia schools, students share textbooks -- 2, 3, or even 4 kids to a book -- and homework can't be assigned out of the book because there aren't

In some Philadelphia schools, students share textbooks -- 2, 3, or even 4 kids to a book -- and homework can't be assigned out of the book because there aren't enough books for kids to take home -- god forbid they lose another! It creates a lot of extra work for teachers, who have to make extra photocopies of readings and assignments. And it kills me, because it's an artificial scarcity. Instead of $5 to $10 per book, the cost of its materials and manufacturing, schools pay upwards of $100 a book, because of the enormous premiums paid to the content creators and publishers. For the cash-strapped Philadelphia schools that is an excessive burden. You can replace "Philadelphia" here with another rust belt city or even, say, a city in California or Nevada, but the story remains the same. And it kills me even more, because there are academics, experts and writers the world over who'd love nothing more than to freely provide high-quality educational content to students. There is no better evidence of this than the hard work done by Wikipedians, but there is plenty evidence besides. Sorry for the rant, but I think it's important to recognize what an utterly simple and necessary step the open-sourcing of textbooks and curriculum is. Good for State Senator Steinberg, and although I'm sorry it's just for colleges and that the K-12 initiative failed, I hope that this program passes, it is successful, and its success forces districts all over the country -- cash-strapped or otherwise -- to consider open-source textbooks. They'll switch because they're cheaper and stay because they're better.