Freeloading

Timothy Taylor, who Brad DeLong describes as the best intro economics teacher he knows has a new basic econ textbook out. And it's available for free!

The publisher, Freeload Press, will earn revenue by selling advertising on the website where the book is distributed. Also, when you download chapters (as PDF files), the first couple of pages might be advertisements. There is a short registration form, but downloads are free. If someone wants an advertising-free, black-and-white paper copy, it's available for $30 at the website ($20 for a micro or a macro split). There will soon be a workbook up on the website to accompany the text, and a test bank is already available for instructors. The website for Freeload Press is http://www.freeloadpress.com.

Is an advertising supported approach a sustainable business model for a textbook company?

I kind of suspect that it may not. On the other hand, as a K-12 endeavor I think things like the California Open Source Textbook Project have a lot of promise. As they observe, "California currently spends more than $400M annually — and rising — for K-12 textbooks" and of course California's not the only state in the country. If any substantial chunk of national K-12 textbook spending by public institutions could be redirected toward open source textbooks, I think you'd do a lot of good.

Comments

This is the second time this morning I've seen the 'M' notation (i.e., "$400M"), and, frankly, it's meaningless. Does Matt mean $400,000, which would seem to be a very reasonable figure for textbooks for California (if you buy into the textbook concept at all) or does he mean $400,000,000, a somewhat grotesque, if unfortunately believable, figure?

Ironically, resolving this usage is probably something that can't be done with a textbook- electronic or otherwise.

Posted by serial catowner | December 14, 2007 9:46 AM

why would you suspect it's not a sustainable model?

he's not asking 'will existing textbook companies be happy and able to make the same (totally obscene and socially worthless) profits they squeeze out of college kids today'.

that's a different question.

but, if heavyweights like Tim Taylor want to undercut the current model with radically cheaper (and presumably high-quality) texts, why wouldn't this work?

Posted by josh bivens | December 14, 2007 9:58 AM

Speaking as 2nd degree college student (aka-I get NO financial aid) majoring in science, I would literally save over a thousand dollars a year if I could pay the author's of my texts directly and download/print my own texts. Heck, most of the time I wouldn't even need to print the damn things. In stead I shell out 150 bucks a book for giant books that many of my profs never even get through-they just pick and choose chapters or offer them as backups for lectures.

Don't even get me started on my 4 kids K-12 textbooks. In the high schools here, they often are not even allowed to bring any home unless they check them out overnight-there just aren't enough to go around. (Usually, I can go online and find a great support site to help them out with homework anyway.) In elementary school, on the other hand, textbook companys have cashed in at the administrative level on the extreme pressure districts feel to perform well on pointless No Child Left Behind standards, and our teachers are FORCED to use texts they don't even find well written or helpful, and create paperback libraries of good literature for kids to read out of their own pockets.

See, people think there's no money for teacher salaries or to expand educational opportunities and training. But these kinds of things are the hidden costs of corporations greedily demanding a big piece of the pie in education legislation.

It's time for an information revolution in education!

Posted by ella | December 14, 2007 10:15 AM

Man, Greg Mankiw won't be happy about this. Not one bit.

Posted by Eric | December 14, 2007 10:17 AM

Nothing would save more money than increasing class size to what our Asian and European rivals, (that outdo us in educational attainment K-12 even for white and Asian Americans) have in their classrooms.
It is our biggest expense - education. And excess teachers given what other nations employ is our biggest line item savings.
The "educational textbook" racket is quite wasteful and considerable savings are achievable there - but nothing like the manpower savings of surplus employees we are told we need because "Johnny and his Mom are not motivated to learn, and Johnny has discipline problems and special needs".

Money saved could then be used by States to rebuild America's infrastructure and add new means of transportation and communications that would make us less energy dependent and more competitive globally. Or ploughed back in education to match China's production of engineers scientists. And start realistic apprentice programs for those not mentally or culturally inclined to seek higher education - but schooling that will thooughly prep them to land a job with dignity and a comfortable lifestyle.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 14, 2007 10:24 AM

The challenge will be getting faculty members to adopt. Publishers put huge amounts of effort into that. Structurally, at least, it's a bit like the way pharmaceutical companies have salesforces that build relationships with doctors (but no free trips to the Caribbean!)

Posted by bcamarda | December 14, 2007 10:46 AM

That, and supporting material. Will the faculty get their comprehensive PowerPoints, notes, and other instructor materials? Or will they have to put more time into organizing and presenting their lectures, in exchange for a savings they don't personally receive?

Posted by bcamarda | December 14, 2007 10:49 AM

That, and supporting materials. Will the faculty get their comprehensive PowerPoints, notes, and other instructor materials? Or will they have to put more time into organizing and presenting their lectures, in exchange for a savings they don't personally receive?

Posted by bcamarda | December 14, 2007 10:50 AM

Bah! Yes, textbooks are a huge racket, but still! Paper forever! Even the act of leafing throughou a book to find information you want provides more context and encourages more patience than seraching some etext, yes even with hyper-links. Grumble grumble down with the internet; at some point people will see the light.

As far as sustainability profit-wise, I expect it to be more true for higher education than for primary and secondary education because of the availability of computers at college libraries and so forth and the fact that older students are more able (or so they think) to discover the useful parts of a text (either printing it out or taking notes directly) than younger students are. Many edcuators, however, will refuse (even those educators free to choose their own texts) to recommend texts with accompanying advertising, impeding the growth of this business-model.

Posted by Moral Panicker | December 14, 2007 10:51 AM

"Nothing would save more money than increasing class size to what our Asian and European rivals, (that outdo us in educational attainment K-12 even for white and Asian Americans) have in their classrooms."

Chris Ford, from this comment it is apparent to me that you know nothing about education. If you are really interested in educating yourself on the subject, a good way to start would be to volunteer at your local elementary school on a regular basis.

About textbooks, most teachers in K-12 have no choice. Districts usually buy texts. In college, aren't professors somehow complicit? Why do they choose those super expensive books? Because thier collegues wrote them. Because they get kidk backs? becasue they hope to write one?

Posted by cw | December 14, 2007 12:18 PM

"Nothing would save more money than increasing class size to what our Asian and European rivals, (that outdo us in educational attainment K-12 even for white and Asian Americans) have in their classrooms."

MY GOD, ARE YOU INSANE!!!!!

My kid's high schools are so big that their teachers don't know their names unless they use a seating roster. How will making class size bigger help anyone? Bill Gate's foundation came out with a terrific grant program to make public high schools SMALLER to enhance the connectedness and educational effectiveness of math and science programs--guess what? THAT works!!!!

Posted by madmom62 | December 14, 2007 12:30 PM

How viable is an ad-supported textbook-publishing model?

It obviously depends entirely on how much revenue the ads can bring in. Contrary to the currently fashionable "everything is free" meme, I really doubt that authors will be motivated to write solely for the promise of for uncertain future ad revenues.

Posted by James Gary | December 14, 2007 12:37 PM

"Contrary to the currently fashionable "everything is free" meme, I really doubt that authors will be motivated to write solely for the promise of for uncertain future ad revenues."

Da infomshun want to be free, mon. Why hol tit bak?

Posted by cw | December 14, 2007 1:38 PM

I see madmom62 and cw have swallowed the NEA mantra that only smaller class sizes will help unmotivated little Johnny to excel.

A way of educating, of course, that piles up more NEA union members as it's main goal.

America is in the bottom 20% of the advanced nations in educational attainment. While being in the top 10% of advanced nations in per-pupil costs.
While European and Asian nations have many classes with 40-50 students in them and far longer school years.

Would the Euros and Asians surpass us even more if they combined 240 day school years with more money and more teachers? Maybe. But they do it with larger classroom sizes and less costs. That allows them to put the saved money into other valuable goals.

The point in context of the thread is that textbooks could save us a little bit if we went with cheaper open source copies - but the real savings in education are in labor productivity. Same as in any business. In this case, the "product" is an educated kid. And the productivity is figuring out how to educate the kid as well and as cheaply as the Euros and Asians do with less teachers.

After public schools, I got a great education and ROTC training at a "prestigious" university where I sometimes sat in classes with 60-80 students, lectured by the prof's graduate assistants. Quite a difference from HS. The rationale of course, was that by getting there we had already proved we were disciplined, intelligent enough, and motivated enough to learn on our own without teacher hand holding. So the university could still churn out well educated students with huge "core" class sizes - and devote resources to other areas of education. Which is the same rationale explained to me by S Korean, Chinese teachers on a tour I did of businessmen assessing the abilities and flexibility of those nations future workers and elite students --as they explained why they turned out a better "product" in their schools at less comparative cost.

If you are really interested in educating yourself on the subject, a good way to start would be to volunteer at your local elementary school on a regular basis.

One impressive part of what I saw in Asian schools was that the students did all the volunteer stuff. Cleaning, organizing the younger ones, helping the slower ones, even disciplining disruptive students.
In S Korea, I was told that parents do volunteer - to help their kids study at night and to open the school on Saturday instead of the school instructors so kids can get a 6th day of studying in that - over years - will give them a better chance of being placed in the elite university track program in HS instead of being put on a trade school HS track.

Kids with "special needs" or persistant disciplinary problems uncorrectable even with corporal punishment are sort of placed in the "dustbin", their education de-emphasized and they are tracked to leave school before 9th grade to become S Korea's street sweepers, office cleaners, and poultry gutters.

Posted by Chris Ford | December 14, 2007 1:40 PM

Yes, there seems to be absolutely zero evidence that reducing class size has a positive impact on student academic achievement...

California instituted a huge class-size reduction program a little over a decade, and the evidence afterward seemed quite conclusion, to the extent that it seemed to convince liberals, conservatives, and "good government pragmatics."

Interestingly enough, if anything the CA results seemed to indicate a small but significant *negative* academic impact from class size reduction. The reason was that the program obviously required a large increase in the number of teachers, and these new and inexperienced teachers apparently harmed student learning more than the smaller classes helped it.

However, class-size reduction proposals are enormously popular with both parents and teachers, and the resulting polling-data usually persuades all the politicians to advocate them regardless.

Our politicians would probably support cyanide drinking-fountains if they polled well...

Posted by RKU | December 14, 2007 2:10 PM

Re: larger classes/fewer teachers are the answer.

I spent a few years of my youth as an expatriate grade and high school student in Japan and Iran. I attended DoD and international schools, but periodically visited my local peers.

My (30 year old) impression, backed up by subsequent college study, was that the relationship between teachers, students, and parents was much different that what most Americans had. I'll broad brush it by saying that the teaching staff didn't accept any crap from the kids, and didn't have to put up with any from the parents. You do the math on how that relationship was enforced.

Today, I think the differences are even greater (we're even more lax), and that American parents and our legal system wouldn't be able to cope with what makes large classes manageable elsewhere. My wife's current impression as a non-teaching staff member at our local el is that larger classes ain't gonna work in the States... unless you accept a cultural sea change to go with it. I suspect that ain't gonna happen.

Posted by Carl Holmberg | December 14, 2007 3:37 PM

Sorry to get you all worked up, Chris, Carl, RKO. Great conversation!

My opinion is based on what I have studied, experienced and what I know to be true for my four kids aged 10-23, so it's a bit biased. Your points about the recent decline in American kids work ethic is right on, but on class size, I still disagree.

I would also like to add the point that we are NOT Asians, or Europeans! (I believe the Japanese also have a high rate of failure-based SUICIDE but do we want to copy that, too?) We don't have the two-tier system of Europe, or the anti-individalist value system of Asian countries. Instead, we have a national comittment to educate ALL our citizens, good, bad, or ugly--not just the ones who make it easy for us to look sucessful.

With that comes challenges that more selective educational systems do not have to deal with. That rarely discussed fact results in the US looking like we get worse results than the rest of the world, instead of understanding that when you attempt to educate all those under the LEFT side of the Bell Curve, you pull down averages. That's a big problem, for example, in states with high illegal immigrant populations, especially the non-English speaking children. They are not "less educated"than other children, they're just not on the same track, yet their standardized test scores are mixed in with everyone else and their schools are chastised for "failing to educate" them. Is that really what the problem is when we compare the US to other countries--expecting every student to be an academic cookie cutter product of a very diverse and dynamic system?

I did GREAT in public schools in the 70's and 80's. What they had were small schools, manageable class sizes, strong disciplinary structures, and in high school especially, simple basic curriculums and closed campuses that kept all of us from thinking we were adults who could come and go as we pleased. And yes, later on I did great in larger university level classes too--because I had gotten all the basics down from teachers who knew my name and my parent's names and who took the time to help me learn things right the first time. It's not the NEA's fault that we have a culture who's kids do better under those kinds of educational conditions. It's that darn, stubborn, American character of ours that is to blame.

Posted by madmom62 | December 14, 2007 6:17 PM

Ella wrote "It's time for an information revolution in education!"

I read somewhere that the U.S. sends $2 billion a year to Africa for education aid. I think a few years of that money would be better spent if the U.S. instead used it to create an online university where (almost) any student in the world could learn any subject from pre-K to undergraduate work. No ads. No profit. Leading such an undertaking would also improve our standing in the world.

5 years and $10 billion dollars could go a long way to making education available to anyone with an internet connection. Couple that with the One Laptop-One Child innitiative and the sky's the limit.

This project is along those lines, but I don't think the wikipedia-type contribution model will get it done in a uniform, thorough manner: http://cnx.org/

People have been taught how to read using software only. Think about it.

Posted by blah2 | December 14, 2007 7:37 PM

This is how I did it in college (the first time I went to college, back in the late 70's.

A friend had one of those big ol' gray microfilm cameras you used to see in libraries. He could produce microfiche (the little sheets of plastic that held micro-images that you put in a reader which blew them up so you could read them.)

I bought my textbooks, gave them to him to microfilm, bought a little $50 hand reader to read them.

Teachers looked at me funny when they said "open your books" - and I pulled out a sheet of plastic and a little plastic reader and started squinting.

A couple years ago when I was taking computer courses at City College of San Francisco, if the class actually had homework from the textbook, I'd buy the book, copy the assignment pages (and maybe some of the text that directly related to the assignment) and returned the book. For other courses, I had downloaded tons of PDF ebooks from Usenet on the topics, so I didn't need the textbooks to follow the course.

I did buy a couple textbooks for classes that couldn't cleanly be handled in either of the above ways.

Textbooks are ridiculously expensive for students. Having to shell out three hundred dollars or more - some textbooks costs over a hundred dollars - is just nonsense. It doesn't matter that the book company is selling to a restricted market. Either make the books available as PDFs for much less money and depend on a larger market for them, or go out of business and find some other way to produce educational materials.

Textbook publishing IS going to go the way of the CD music business sooner or later. It's inevitable. Books will last longer than CDs, because books have a longer human history than CDs. But they have the same flaw of physicality vs digital that will make them obsolete in due time.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 14, 2007 7:46 PM

One of the biggest problems in education today is that everybody feels like the are an expert. No one here spouts out their opinions on surgery or nuclear physics, but everyone is an expert when education comes around. Apprently anyone could run a school district. It's all just common sense and recollections of the good old days, and if you get stuck, there's always Rush Limbaugh there to help you out.

I'm sending this out to you Chris Ford (I hope you're not the old Celtic).

Posted by cw | December 14, 2007 8:12 PM

A review of the evidence concerning the effect of class size on educational performance can be found here.

Posted by Kenneth Almquist | December 14, 2007 8:26 PM

There we go. Thank you Mr. Almquist for introducing actual knowledge of the subject into the discussion. Education is one of the most studied subject in the US. We know what works.

Posted by cw | December 14, 2007 9:57 PM

Thank you Mr. Almquist. The information seems to support the idea that smaller class sizes enhance not only academic performance but the ability for the teacher and school to control problem behavior--my point exactly when it comes to high school.

In a school built in the early 70's designed to hold about 1400 max, my 12th grader is one of 2500 total kids on campus, the majority of whom seem to feel that their presence in class is optional. There's not even enough room in the cafeteria for 500 students, so instead, as soon as they are able, they drive all over our small city during that time. If they get back a little late to class, the teachers are required to close the classroom to them and send them to "detention"--so they know if they're gonna be late, they just got a windfall of a whole class period to go play X-Box live at someone's house. By the end of their four years, no wonder many kids perform so poorly on standardized tests.

Posted by ella | December 15, 2007 12:54 PM