Selling Lesson Plans Online, Teachers Raise Questions - NYT

[Bozita]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/education/15plans.html?_r=1&hp

November 15, 2009
Selling Lesson Plans Online, Teachers Raise Questions

By WINNIE HU
Between Craigslist and eBay, the Internet is well established as a marketplace where one person’s trash is transformed into another’s treasure. Now, thousands of teachers are cashing in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.

While some of this extra money is going to buy books and classroom supplies in a time of tight budgets, the new teacher-entrepreneurs are also spending it on dinners out, mortgage payments, credit card bills, vacation travel and even home renovation, leading some school officials to raise questions over who owns material developed for public school classrooms.

“To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it’s fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds,” said Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

The marketplace for educational tips and tricks is too new to have generated policies or guidelines in most places. In Fairfax County, Va., officials had been studying the issue when they discovered this fall that a former football coach was selling his playbook and instructional DVDs online for $197; they investigated but let him keep selling.

A high school English teacher in upstate New York said her bosses barred her from selling plans used in her classroom; she spoke on the condition that she not be named.

Beyond the unresolved legal questions, there are philosophical ones. Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, said the online selling cheapens what teachers do and undermines efforts to build sites where educators freely exchange ideas and lesson plans.

“Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that’s a great thing,” he said. “But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession.”

Teachers like Erica Bohrer, though, see the new demand for lessons as long-awaited recognition of their worth.

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[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. Maybe if they were paid more, this wouldn't happen.

[LWolf]

4. You nailed that one.

I've never sold a lesson plan, but I'm always looking for ways to make extra money.

[Swamp Rat]

2. I bet Joseph McDonald earns a lot more than elementary school teachers.

I also bet he sells his intellectual property in the form of books.

Oh look, Joseph McDonald has direct links to Amazon.com from his university bio webpage:

http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Joseph_McDonald

http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-P.-McDonald/e/B001JRX67W/ref=sr_tc_2_0

[Bozita]

5. Yup. Good post, Swampy!

[Xithras]

3. The debate should be a simple one. When were they written?

If the lesson plan was written on the teachers own time, then the plan...and it's resale rights...belong to the teacher, unless there is a specific noncompete or IP ownership agreement in place. If the plan was written on the school districts time, or was created using taxpayer funded resources, then the plan is the property of the employer, and the teacher can actually be prosecuted for embezzlement if they try to resell it.

This is a fairly common source of litigation in many fields of employment and, while it's new to the educational realm, most of the fundamentals were settled in the courts long ago.

[EFerrari]

6. Why are teachers treated like behavioral children?

What bullshit this is: “Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that’s a great thing,” he said. “But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession.”

These people can't stand the idea of independent thought or that a red cent might escape their control.

[mdavies013]

7. My wife is a teacher and she gets a budget of $200 to put towards her classroom...

She has to turn to donors in order to provide an amazing experience for the children. She has been lucky in some ways and very resourceful in others. She's been awarded almost $10,000 in grants over the past 3 years from Target (2X), Best Buy, our Electric Co-op and through Donors Choose. If a teacher can earn extra money with their talents...I say great. They are not paid enough, provided with adequate resources in the classroom or given adequate support.