Dive Brief:
- Fair Haven, NJ, teacher Chris Aviles weighed in on the debate over who owns teachers' lesson plans, especially when they're stored using cloud services like Google Drive.
- The legal debate over the question has hinged on a complex mix of case law, student privacy law, and copyright law that has failed to provide a decisive answer and left districts without clear guidance.
- Teachers should own what they make, Aviles wrote in an EdSurge op-ed, but if they can't, districts should at least clarify the guidelines so they aren't afraid to create.
Dive Insight:
The question of who owns teachers' lesson plans is an old and a contentious one. Teachers who sell their lessons for a profit have drawn questions, as well as frustration from districts hoping to get a cut of the profits. The controversy has pitted teachers and their unions against the districts they work for. "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," Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of State Superintendents, told The New York Times in 2009. And some say the fact that taxpayer dollars were used for teachers' salaries means the work they create should be available to other teachers, free of charge.
On the other hand, the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, has called for teachers to be able to own what they make. In a statement in 2013, the union pointed to standard practices in academia as an example of the path potential legislation or collective bargaining could take. In his op-ed, Aviles said, "The idea that a district could own some of the truly amazing things I’ve seen teachers make, especially with code, is wrong."
