The Cost of “Pure” Education

Charlie O’Donnell writes on his blog:

“But free necessitates some kind of advertising, and that’s where the party ends for an educational web app. Schools have gotten a lot of heat for bringing corporations anywhere near the classroom and so the market shys away from such a thing.

But this is hypocritical and unrealistic.�

I agree and left this comment:

Corporations are already deeply embedded in the classroom – in the form of private sector textbook publishers. And the corporate profit structure is present in a way that’s deleterious and distracting to students.

Ridiculously overpriced textbooks result in a) primary and secondary schools (in the US, but especially in developing countries) that cannot afford the price and therefore either go without textbooks or with very outdated editions shared by multiple students, and b) college students that have to take on jobs in order to pay for textbooks.

In the current profit flow – money goes from student to private sector textbook publisher. Why not invert the funnel and make it go from sponsor to student? In short, students pay dearly and directly to corporations for their erstwhile freedom from corporations.

Certainly, in cases where the choice is between no textbook and sponsored educational material (either print textbook or videogame), the choice should be obvious.

It may not be appropriate for the social sciences, but I don’t see the harm for the hard sciences and math where it’s unlikely that Pepsi cares much about the way fractions are taught.