With regard to quality, I think you’re making a few unfounded assumptions with which I’d quibble.

First, I would love to see evidence that links cost to academic quality and student outcomes in traditional instructional materials. In fact, lots have pointed out some of the problems with the current processes: Fordham, Edutopia, SIIA, etc.

I’d also love to see evidence on the availability/accessibility and use of instructional materials today. Last I saw from MetLife Foundation was that over a quarter of urban secondary schools didn’t have enough textbooks and the system in place to serve special populations, like students with disabilities, is nothing short of a disaster and national disgrace.

And, with state budgets hurting, we are seeing adoption cycles (which lock content approved for use in schools for six or more years) lengthen. (Check your kids’ science textbook to see how many planets are in the solar system.) This is an area ripe for reform: adoption processes, repositories, textbook caravans (!?!), etc.

We spend nearly $9 billion a year on textbooks and other instructional materials in schools; don’t we need a more nimble system, better aligned to standards and assessments, better able to be customized for use with all kids? Couldn’t we save money by sharing the development costs via open copyright licenses? Don’t public officials have the obligation to taxpayers to do so?

I’d assert that (1) the paradigm of the printed textbook as the dominant form of instructional materials isn’t serving kids, especially at risk kids, and (2) the current highly-regulated marketplace we have today could be changed to allow for innovation and to better invest public dollars for the public good over the long-term. Open educational resources can be created and assembled for K12 with an ecosystem to support teacher professional development, continuous improvement of the quality of those materials, and at a lower cost. I think we all may be surprised at how fast this could tip.