The Washington K-12 Example

Washington's HB 2337 Links to an external site. “Regarding open educational resources in K-12 education” directs the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI Links to an external site.) to support the 295 WA K-12 school districts in learning about and adopting existing open educational resources (OER) aligned with WA and common core Links to an external site. curricular standards (e.g., CK-12 Links to an external site. textbooks & Curriki Links to an external site.). The bill also directs OSPI to “provide professional development programs that offer support, guidance, and instruction regarding the creation, use, and continuous improvement of open courseware.”

The opening section of the bill reads:

“The legislature finds the state’s recent adoption of common core K-12 standards provides an opportunity to develop high-quality, openly licensed K-12 courseware that is aligned with these standards. By developing this library of openly licensed courseware and making it available to school districts free of charge, the state and school districts will be able to provide students with curricula and texts while substantially reducing the expenses that districts would otherwise incur in purchasing these materials. In addition, this library of openly licensed courseware will provide districts and students with a broader selection of materials, and materials that are more up-to-date.”

While focus of this bill is to help school districts identify existing high-quality, free, openly licensed, common core state standards aligned resources available for local adoption; any content built with public funds, must be licensed under “an attribution Links to an external site. license.”

Representative Reuven Carlyle Links to an external site. has been a leader working on open education (including the Open Course Library Links to an external site.) in WA for years and has blogged about it: here Links to an external site., here Links to an external site., here Links to an external site. and here Links to an external site..

Representative Reuven Carlyle introducing HB2337 in the House

This page is adapted from an article Links to an external site. by Cable Green.