How About K-12? (2007.01.07)

Since Rick and I began talking about Global Text, we always found that people loved the idea, but frequently noted that an even greater need was for free textbooks for K-12 students, and not only in developing countries, but also in poor school districts in the US As just one example, when I described Global Text to the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning on my campus, she commented on the K-12 need in the Denver Public Schools. She said that many textbooks were badly out of date, and there are not even enough of them so that every student had one to take home at night to do their homework.

While noting the K-12 need, our ties are with the higher ed community, and since the community develops the content, we could see how we could engage the higher ed community in writing texts, but it would be harder for us to engage the K-12 community. We also noted that others are focused on the K-12 problem, both here and abroad.

Having said that, we have had conversations with potential partners in the K-12 community, who do have the requisite ties to the K-12 academic community and concern for the problem, world-wide. As one example, I had a long conversation last week with a K-12 academic administrator who is on the board of a foundation that focuses on helping K-12 schools in sub-Saharan Africa. He told me about a middle school in rural Ethiopia they helped build. One of the ways they continue to support this particular school is to round up surplus textbooks in the US and ship them to the school. While this is helpful, it has two downsides: 1) the texts are often out-of-date, and 2) the process is expensive. He could see how Global Text offers a better model: Current, high-quality texts that are free. This man has the necessary ties to the K-12 community and the ability to engage them. We left it that he will contact the school in Ethiopia to find a subject where the need is greatest, and then recruit a group of academics to create a text using the Global Text model. If this comes to fruition, it could serve as a model for extending Global Text to K-12, with their foundation perhaps buying Sony eReaders for the students. They like the Sony eReader as a potential repository for textbooks in the right locations (and so do I).


-Don