Jonathan, I find your piece very interesting, and as I’d guess you intended, quite provocative. I haven't spent much time imagining potential downsides of making educational material free to all, and I really enjoyed reading your ideas. I have a few comments and disagreements that you may find worthwhile to address.

1.Within your first argument about textbooks, you seem to assume that American teachers’ dependence on textbooks is good, or even acceptable.Whether that is the case is, at the very least, debatable. I mention this point only so that you can incorporate it if you so choose; it does not really change your argument about free textbooks generally, but you may want to consider the other ways in which free books, magazines and newspapers (in addition to textbooks) could work within the U.S. education system. The debate over whether teaching from a textbook is a good idea exists even among those who must teach to standardized tests because there are multiple ways to teach similar content.

2. I think many people would argue that the creation of a textbook actually has the potential for a great deal of creativity and differentiation. The focus, organization, pictures choice, textboxes, incorporated activities, etc. all change the textbook a great deal and can be used in order to tailor a textbook to a particular group of students (for example, a textbook for elementary school children who grew up in the city may need to explain “fireplaces” or “driveways,” while a textbook for children in the country may need to explain the “subway”). Books intended to teach literacy are particularly appropriate for adapting to meet the needs of particular students, as children’s reading levels go up the more background knowledge they have about the topic on which they’re reading. [http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2008/08/27/on-reading-why-content-knowledge-matters/][See this article about content knowledge and reading.] [http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring06/willingham.htm][Or this more in depth article].

3. In your section on Free Educational Software, you seem to confuse the Achievement Gap with children with learning disabilities when you refer to children who are “1+ standard deviations below various cognitive means.” The idea of the achievement gap, at least as I understand it, is that children who started out with similar levels of ability to learn, are not achieving the same thing. Connected to this point, what is a “natural born learner”? A child who learns well from the style that is typically used in American classrooms? One beauty of software is that even putting many children on a computer while providing similar content increases the amount that they learn. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCG/is_2_30/ai_105478983/][See this article]

4. I agree with you that free literature/books/software aren’t sufficient to close the achievement gap; however, access to free reading materials may be necessary. Putting a great piece of literature into a poor child’s hands will not teach him to read, but without any books at all, he is guaranteed not to learn. Access to reading material is more than a baby step. While parents can help increase literacy, so can great teachers. I would guess (though I can't prove) that a lot more good teachers would stay in teaching if they didn’t have to fight so hard for basic resources like books. Also, maybe your point about generations of reinforced behavior patterns suggests we should make reading material available to adults as well?

I hope these comments are helpful, and that you don't mind my disagreements too much!