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I have physics, math and chemistry books from 30+ years ago that are not lacking at all in content. I truly do not understand why it is that, in the US, most s

I have physics, math and chemistry books from 30+ years ago that are not lacking at all in content. I truly do not understand why it is that, in the US, most science books aren't 100% free all the way from K through graduate school. In fact, my kids have used my old books to help them with AP Physics in high school. They tell me they like the lower content of distracting color-filled "circus acts" (as they call it) and better explanations. How much of the math, physics and chemistry has changed? I would guess, depending on stage of learning and subject, somewhere between 0% and 10% (with 10% possibly being an exaggeration). It is nothing less than ridiculous that students have to buy books on Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, etc. for $60 or more. This is the kind of thing that really gets me going about just how badly our system of education has derailed in some areas. Most school books, at a national level, should be freely available and used year over year, preferably in electronic form. What is wrong with a, let's call it, federally publish set of books covering the sciences and other subjects? They could be evolved over time. I know these things exist in various forms, we simply don't seem to lay down the law and use them. CK-12 used to be about books, now they seem to have expanded beyond that: https://www.ck12.org/student/ https://www.ck12.org/student/ What's wrong with these books? https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/subjects

harshreality 3y ago
openstax is working on that too, for general college and AP subjects. They're getting assigned in some courses, but I think most professors are happy assigning commercial textbooks, often knowing that they can be pirated and that most students will pirate them. What's the justification for a professor to assign openstax Calculus instead of Stewart, for instance, other than to make a political statement? It won't matter in another few years once teaching AIs, a hybrid of LLMs and knowledgebases and logical inference engines, can take the place of textbooks and teachers for non-specialized fields. That'll be able to handle almost all K-12 and lower level college subjects, and teach better than most human teachers. Traditional education may not matter by then, though, depending on what AI does to society.
j5155 3y ago
“Federally publishing” books seems like it would be left to the lowest bidder and the results would be terrible. I took a government class recently that used one of the mentioned open textbooks and it was great.
- brnaftr361 3y ago
  The private, for-profit results are already bad. The formatting is uniformally terrible, the writing is hit and miss. I like some of the open stuff as it is web formatted as opposed to paper formatting, which is the same motif that digitized textbooks use, which is both absurd and frustrating, not to mention DRM readers with shit functionality and bad or absent in-text linking and zero interactivity. It just paints "RENT SEEKING" all over the industry as a whole. However there are some publishers that make nice barebones texts and offer them in unlocked pdfs at economical rates, a real godsend. The people I really appreciate are the pedagogues on YouTube who make world-class materials for "free". Shout out to Dennis Davis: https://m.youtube.com/@DennisDavisEdu https://m.youtube.com/@DennisDavisEdu
- thfuran 3y ago
  The federal government could just acquire textbooks by eminent domain.

harshreality 3y ago

openstax is working on that too, for general college and AP subjects. They're getting assigned in some courses, but I think most professors are happy assigning commercial textbooks, often knowing that they can be pirated and that most students will pirate them. What's the justification for a professor to assign openstax Calculus instead of Stewart, for instance, other than to make a political statement? It won't matter in another few years once teaching AIs, a hybrid of LLMs and knowledgebases and logical inference engines, can take the place of textbooks and teachers for non-specialized fields. That'll be able to handle almost all K-12 and lower level college subjects, and teach better than most human teachers. Traditional education may not matter by then, though, depending on what AI does to society.

j5155 3y ago

“Federally publishing” books seems like it would be left to the lowest bidder and the results would be terrible. I took a government class recently that used one of the mentioned open textbooks and it was great.

brnaftr361 3y ago
The private, for-profit results are already bad. The formatting is uniformally terrible, the writing is hit and miss. I like some of the open stuff as it is web formatted as opposed to paper formatting, which is the same motif that digitized textbooks use, which is both absurd and frustrating, not to mention DRM readers with shit functionality and bad or absent in-text linking and zero interactivity. It just paints "RENT SEEKING" all over the industry as a whole. However there are some publishers that make nice barebones texts and offer them in unlocked pdfs at economical rates, a real godsend. The people I really appreciate are the pedagogues on YouTube who make world-class materials for "free". Shout out to Dennis Davis: https://m.youtube.com/@DennisDavisEdu https://m.youtube.com/@DennisDavisEdu
thfuran 3y ago
The federal government could just acquire textbooks by eminent domain.