Putin's friend profits from overhaul of Russian textbooks

Here's a recent New York Times article that adds something to our discussion of textbooks and textbook publishing:

Quote from the article:

                                "Thousands Protest

Changes in curriculum are not to be taken lightly. Sticking with a single line of textbooks ensures that students build upon the skills they learn from year to year. Additionally, different textbooks employ different teaching styles. Enlightenment, for instance, publishes Soviet-style texts that emphasize rote memorization. The textbooks produced by Fyodorov use a more progressive teaching method called the Zankov system, which is aimed at teaching children how to think. The Zankov textbooks are quite popular, and their exclusion prompted a rare public display of protest.

The books’ authors gathered more than 25,000 signatures and petitioned the education minister, Mr. Livanov. “Thousands of teachers and parents from all regions of the Russian Federation who want to choose for their children a path to individual and optimal development of characters share in our concern,” they wrote.

Yelena A. Ilinykh, a first-grade teacher in Moscow, is one. The very superiority of Fyodorov’s textbooks is what led them to be barred, she said in an interview near her school, because they threatened the market share of its politically connected competitor."