[mahdireilly]

Honestly, that is not a ridiculous idea. If we remove the standardized testing, the community developed textbook would explode.

In many of my college classes I spend more time using wikipedia than my textbook.

Furthermore, I know many teachers who have written widely used (assigned reading in over 1k classes) who want their books to be available for a greatly reduced price if not all together for free. Unfortunately the publishers ban this and the writers must relent since the only way to get their book known is if it comes from a major publisher. They justify this mostly based on promotion costs, but this is not even close to their profit margins.

Books are expensive because there is little competition, particularly with k-12 schools, largely based on political lobbying.

Of course, we aren't likely to dissolve lobbyists anytime soon; but the idea of socially conscious startups is to dream big.