Great stuff - thanks! I will digest this more over the coming week, but here are a few quick responses to the enumerated comments below:

1) Personally, I don't think teacher dependence on textbooks and rigid lesson plans is good, but, whatever my ideas are for an ideal education system, that is beyond what I wanted to tackle here. Specifically, I was just hoping to point out systemic realities that aren't likely to change anytime soon and then envision what challenges might arise if all of these educational materials were suddenly free. There is a lot to criticize about NCLB, certainly, but to my knowledge every state attempts to play by its rules for funding purposes. When standardized tests, on which funding depends, are linked to very specific learning objectives, educators are extremely constrained to teach things by the book. That's the reality of it. Having specific, universal learning objectives makes it easier to collect data on a large-scale and then evaluate national educational progress. That's what goes on in this country: the fed has created an omni-present aura of accountability, and this kind of surveillance is supposed to be the spur educators need. If teachers were suddenly allowed to take advantage of a free textbook/curriculum market, it would become much more difficult to match so many new varieties of methodologies with measurable learning objectives.

2. Great point, which I imagine is a better depiction of the K-3 context than, say, the 9-12 context. There is certainly creative potential there, but textbook writing is notoriously arduous, and I would be surprised if many people write high school textbooks to express their artistic side. I could be wrong.

3. Of course, there are a variety of reasons -- cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, etc., etc. -- why some students might be better primed to learn than others, and your point is well taken. I would point out, though, that there are actually many "achievement gaps" monitored by the fed through NCLB, and many of these involve socioeconomic and racial groups who score lower on both cognitive tests and educational achievement tests, so it's not all about ability-achievement gaps. [The fact that better educational achievement in school is correlated with increased cognitive "ability" scores is a whole separate mega-issue of test validity, so I won't go there]. It is also true that NCLB looks at how special education students are fairing relative to other sub-groups, so better educating those with cognitive "disabilities" is certainly within the scope of closing achievement gaps. I agree with you about the beauty and potential of educational software, though.

4. I think we agree on just about everything here. The "baby-step" concept certainly isn't a science, so I won't debate too much about exactly how big it would be. Above all, again, I'm just hoping to point out shortcomings and potential challenges based on the current legal/political structure of education in the U.S. today.

-- JonathanBoyer - 24 Nov 2009