Thanks for you response - I didn't think about that at all. Unfortunately most textbook purchasers don't have the ability to "avoid" bad texts....

I wonder if there were a way to rewire the textbook market so that teachers assigned different kinds of things...in other words, so that the teacher assigned a student to read a credible source of information regarding geometric identities rather than section 23.6 of a stated text.

Imagine how much more interesting learning would be if students all came to the classroom having reasoned through the knowledge differently? It would be really neat to set up a system that was basically a "hacker news" for whatever piece of information...educators could comment on in-class efficacy & kids could comment on comprehensiveness.

You'd need to charge for it (Unless you could source the books for free) but this is interesting conceptually.