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Should Teachers Sell Their Class Materials?

By John Norton

A Sunday New York Times article raised questions about the practice of teachers selling lesson plans to others around the country. The article apparently hit a nerve in educator circles—it was the second most e-mailed Times story on Monday.

According to the article, there’s a burgeoning Internet trade in teacher-made products. Web sites are proliferating where teachers sell individual worksheets for under a dollar and elaborate lessons and units for much more. Questions have arisen, however, about who owns the materials teachers use in their classrooms and whether the profit motive will jeopardize the free exchange of ideas among educators.

The teachers in our TLN daily discussion forum had no shortage of opinions about the Times story and the pros and cons of teacher...