Education (textbooks)

I just did a quick test on pricing.

I went to Amazon.com and priced books using the keyword "Algebra."  I got several options, most around the $10 to $15 range.

I then changed my keywords to "Algebra Textbooks."  The price is now around $100!  That is for a single book.

The message here is clear.  Textbooks cost too much.

Here is my plan.  Let's use Algebra as an example. 
The government puts together a panel to create a single, acceptable Algebra text.
The text is used across the country.
The text is available online where everyone can download it and it can be easily updated.

The result is a textbook for every Algebra student for the cost of creating a single book. 

The next step is to do this for every subject; kindergarten through PhD level studies.  All of it is online.

Now, issue an eReader to every student. Some might say this is too costly.  Well, let's do some math.

Six books per year times 12 years of school times $100 per book = $7,200 per student in the USA for all of their pre-college school books.  Now, let's say books can be reused up to 4 times.  This still means we spend $1,800 on books.  Deduct from this a $200 fee for an eReader and the savings is conservatively $1,600 per student.

So, it's clearly cost efficient.  It also cuts down on injuries due to lugging heavy books around and excuses such as "I left my book at school."  There is no more "poor schools get what is left over," type of thing.  Everyone studies the same thing - at least in the Public Schools.  It also makes for easy updating.  We don't need new history books to include Obama - we just add another chapter.

I welcome your responses.

Jim