Reuven Carlyle,  Representative from Seattle to the Washington State Legislature, has written an engaging blog on the importance of Open Educational Resources.  Standing for re-election in a few months, he is calling on both veteran legislators and new candidates to outline their policy plans.  Mr. Carlyle begins the outline of his own policy priorities with the importance of open education and OER in a post from earlier today entitled “Want government reform?  Open access to education”.  He says:

Yes it’s a movement and yes it has detractors and advocates. Yes it requires a leap of faith that the web has fundamentally changed our world’s view of the power of information for the better and, yes, it requires a belief in the common good over proprietary financial interests.

But of course it’s not just about money, it’s about the core value of access to opportunity for everyone.

Our national needs are radically changing and our bureaucracies, systems and structures are understandably terrified by the challenges. We need to educate more people to higher levels not only through traditionally more, extremely expensive “high demand” static slots paid by taxpayers but through radical approaches to access to information.

Mr. Carlyle goes on to say:

My public policy goal in 2011 and beyond is to ensure that Washington is fully engaged in this movement, leads the effort where it makes sense and tackles the challenges of opening the doors of access to higher education in new and profound ways.

Government reform is a buzzword but we can radically change how we open the doors of access to higher education by making information available in new, bold and creative ways.

You can read the full posting here.  If you know of other legislators working on open educational policy, please share!