California’s New Open Textbook Law
California Governor Jerry Brown has recently signed two new bills (SB 1052 and SB 1053) that pave the way for free, open license digital textbooks for the 50 most popular lower-division college courses offered in California. The legislation, introduced by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, passed the state Senate and Assembly in August.
Textbooks developed under the new will be made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license. This will allow anyone to use or distribute the content free of charge, so long as the authors are appropriately credited. It will also allow teachers to modify the textbooks to best serve their students.
What remains to be determined is who will write these textbooks and whether their quality will
California’s New Law Against Private College Scams
Private vocational colleges are a largely unregulated, multimillion dollar industry that has a reputation of aggressively recruiting, especially in low income communities. Many are guilty of unsubstantiated claims and false advertising. Under a new law effective January 1, California’s private vocational schools will now have to disclose their accreditation status and graduation rates.
Schools will have to state in their course catalogs whether they are accredited. If they are not accredited, they must inform students of any drawbacks to their degrees, including the possibility that they might be prohibited them from taking licensing exams. They will also have to post job placement and graduation rates and how much graduates earn.
The new law comes in the wake of recent lawsuits against universities and colleges for