August 11, 2009, WASHINGTON, DC – Curriki, a leading online community for creating and sharing K-12 open source curricula today called on California teachers to join forces to enhance high school curriculum.  In response to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Free Digital Text Book Initiative, Curriki will work with California teachers to collaboratively improve free digital textbooks for high school earth science and chemistry courses.

The Governor, State Superintendent Jack O'Connell and the State Board of Education announced in May the Free Digital Textbook Initiative (www.gov.ca.gov/press-release/122225/), a project to provide a list of standards-aligned free digital textbooks for high schools that cover course content in math and science.

"Curriki is the leading open and shared content platform for the development and sharing of K-12 education resources," said Scott McNealy, Founder of Curriki and Chairman and Co-Founder, Sun Microsystems. "www.curriki.org is an ideal channel to help move the Governor's initiative forward. Curriki provides the large repository of resources and the active community of reviewers needed to deliver the quality content that is compliant with the State's appropriately stringent text book standards. The more we engage qualified teachers to review the textbooks and add their input, the better the content will be. The real winners here are the students."

Curriki has submitted two textbooks, one in Earth Science and one in Chemistry. While these books will be available in their approved PDF form for CA educators to use this coming school year, Curriki has invited California teachers of these subjects to come to www.curriki.org to work with the core content and improve, revise and extend it to meet the needs of their individual classrooms.

Curriki also announced today that a select group of teachers from the San Jose school system will team with the organization to review and improve the Earth Science and Chemistry open source textbooks. "Silicon Valley has long been a hub of innovation," said Dr. Dr. Bill Erlendson, Assistant Superintendent, San Jose Unified School District. "We're excited to work with Curriki to have a team of our teachers innovate on the State's free textbook project by reviewing, editing and supplementing the core material. The results may mark a new era in how instructional materials are developed."

"We know that there are many talented teachers in California that would love to help shape the future of their Earth Science and Chemistry textbooks," said Dr. Barbara "Bobbi" Kurshan, Curriki’s Executive Director. "Curriki’s free, open and shared platform gives teachers a community and repository to advance what the California digital textbook initiative is trying to do to the next level, by empowering educators to modify and improve the books to meet their needs and the needs of their students."

Curriki is dedicated to eliminating the education divide. To join forces with Curriki to develop and deliver math and science content for California high school students, please visit www.curriki.org

About Curriki

Curriki is a not-for-profit organization committed to eliminating the education divide. Through an open source platform, Curriki delivers free and peer reviewed K-12 curricula as well as collaboration tools to teachers, students and parents around the world so teachers can teach more effectively and students can learn at their own pace.  By increasing teacher engagement in curriculum development, Curriki drives teacher effectiveness and student performance. Spun off from Sun Microsystems in 2006, Curriki has more than 80,000 members and over 30,000 learning assets. To learn more, please log onto www.curriki.org.