What if the problem in K-12
education was not that students are not meeting standards but rather
that the standards are set too low and students are not challenged to
excel? Or, what happens if the students are trapped in their desks, in
their boxes, rather than being challenged to test their knowledge in
practical applications? What happens if those challenges do not find
relevance in the students’ eyes?
Whatever happened to the one room
school where the mixing of grades allowed students to participate in an
educational experience with potential advancement based on knowledge
mastery rather than being herded in age-defined cohorts, managed like an
object on an assembly line? Whatever happened to the idea that "it takes
a village to raise a child?" When did we shift to the over certification
of individuals in the production line of an educational factory?
Smart money across the United
States is saying that by re-inventing the past we can move into the
future, taking advantage of the emerging technology of the internet.
Smart money says that the current system is broken. And, rather than
taking scarce revenues and trying to patch the current system,
re-invention is potentially less costly and has the ability to bring
about better results. It may produce a significant disruption in order
to affect the transformation-perhaps greater than the conversion of the
caterpillar into the butterfly.
Examples abound. Some of these are
seen in the entrepreneurial sector. For example, DeVry University and
its secondary e-learning institute, Advanced Academics, now offer to
secondary school students the opportunity to obtain both a high school
diploma and two years towards a post secondary program, including a four
year degree. Lest one decry this model as a discounted educational
program, Gates Foundation with other philanthropic partners has 5 years
of experience and 150 similar programs in 24 states, with plans to raise
this number to 260 programs.
The Gates effort is aimed at the
educationally disadvantaged rather than the usual suspects, those who
qualify for Advanced Placement or similar programs for the high
achieving students. The program, ECHS, Early College High School, has
had amazing results with students who, up to this point, have performed,
at best, marginally. In some cases graduation rates of better than 95%,
with students achieving honors recognition have been achieved.
What is even more interesting is
that financial analysis indicates that these programs operate within the
current budgets for public secondary schools. In other words, students
who have been considered under-achieving throughout their academy
careers have achieved the equivalent of a post secondary associate
degree while graduating from high school and, at the same cost as the
secondary school budget alone whether the students are matriculated in a
public school in the case of the Gates program, or in a private
for-profit program offered through the public schools.
Now think service learning. These
are programs where students volunteer for community service either as an
extra-curricular activity or as part of a course where the latter
combines learning with service or projects demonstrating knowledge
mastery. The federal government supports these programs in many states.
There is a substantive body of literature which indicates that such
programs provide a number of well defined benefits which accrue when
carried out beyond the academic box. These include: improved academic
achievement, improved school environments, decreased risk behaviors and
enhanced civic development. All of this has been measured and validated.
What is clear in the above
examples is that education is a continuous or life-long learning,
experience from preK (P) to 16 at minimum. This means that the
artificial transitions between grades or schools--primary, secondary,
post-secondary--need to be eliminated in the public sector. The
artificial barriers, smaller at the primary/secondary interface and a
yawning gulf between the secondary/post-secondary must be eliminated as
we are seeing with these emerging joint-programs. Universities can no
longer dangle their admissions before students like a carrot in front of
a milk horse. And undergraduate teaching faculty need to be seen as no
different from their colleagues at the secondary level. Like an army
storming a castle, there are too many holes in that wall and too many
ropes over the parapets to posit that the castle of "The Academy" has
not been breached.
Today, there are universities that
have laboratory schools with a variety of purposes beyond training of
teachers or studying students. One embodiment has been labeled
Professional Development Schools, PDS, where ideas such as described
above can be "field tested" as well as providing practice at the cutting
edge to new teachers. But this requires the active involvement of
academics, those too used to standing back, observing, suggesting at a
distance, and publishing or perishing. The results of these programs are
proven. The economics of these programs show the potential of
significant savings to the public.
There are other clouds on the
horizon for the post secondary institutions. First, with reference to
the Early College High School program, one must consider that if more
secondary school students are able to achieve up to two years of post
secondary credit and/or an AA degree, then the colleges and universities
will see a significant reduction in students matriculating into the core
freshman and sophomore courses, the cash cows which support small upper
division courses. Many states have mandated that their four year public
institutions accept credits from community colleges pari passu to their
own courses without question. Since many of the ECHS programs have two
year institutions as partners with the secondary institutions, high
school students can achieve these credits without having to take the
traditional "advanced placement" or AP courses or the equivalent.
This becomes further acerbated
with the growing number of community colleges which now offer
baccalaureate degrees. Thus, as the need to have a basic college degree
to enter into the work force increases, many will find a lower cost
vehicle, avoiding the escalating college tuition in both the public and
private sector institutions. In other words, state governments that see
the rising cost of education and the wasted senior secondary year will
find the ECHS model coupled with the lower cost community college
programs as a significant cost savings to the public while the students
and their families will see the fiscal barrier towards a baccalaureate
significantly reduced.
Interestingly, e-learning in a
variety of forms from asynchronous/synchronous classes to participation
in virtual worlds is growing. By some estimates there is a growth rate
of about 30%/year for K-12 students taking courses. This medium allows
educational institutions to meet a new set of opportunities. Some of
these include expanding the types of classes offered while others allow
institutions to import classes created by others. Some of these are
free, such as the catalogue offered by MIT which can be used by
teachers. Others can be obtained complete with state certified teachers,
mostly provided by the private/for-profit sector.
More importantly, these
private/for-profits can work across state boundaries, being certified in
most states. This means, for families that move, switching programs in
school is less traumatic than having to find health care coverage as
families move or switch employment. Also one needs to be cognizant of
the fact that political boundaries are not just state lines, but
international boundaries; and geographical barriers become transparent
In a number of states there are
programs to help students become "college ready". The emerging programs
at the interface turn the program around, particularly for public
universities/colleges. Instead of setting admissions criteria or demands
on applicants, the situation will almost be inverted. The post secondary
institutions have an increasing incentive to become directly involved in
working with the secondary institutions. The ramifications for faculty
and departments become interesting.
Instead of waiting for students to
show up in university classes, institutions and their faculty will need
to be committed to working with secondary schools. Promotion and tenure
for faculty will depend on new criteria being developed. The difference
between post secondary faculty and secondary faculty will start to
diminish at both the two year and four year institutions. Even post
secondary faculty who teach in graduate programs and carry out
substantive research will find changes in how the institution views
promotion and tenure.
At the moment, there is
discussion, not just about P-16, but P-20 or the inclusion of the
Masters and Ph.D. programs. As knowledge formally taught in secondary
schools becomes upgraded, some upgrading of early grades will also
occur. Simultaneously, knowledge normally gained at the Masters level
will roll down to the undergraduate program. This idea has been around
at institutions like Oxford and Cambridge where a Masters is granted
almost automatically two years beyond students having received the
undergraduate degree and entered the professional arena.
We have already seen this in the
health care industry. At one time nurses, RN’s, graduated from three
year hospital programs. Today, the RN is a two year diploma from a
community college or technical institute. RN’s with bachelor degrees now
are able to become Nurse Practitioners at the Masters level. These
specialists, in many states now provide many of the services of the
traditional MD, General Practitioner, in small clinics, practice under
their own license, and, in many states, are able to write prescriptions,
including those for controlled substances.
There are several caveats here.
First, Clayton Christensen, who coined the term "disruptive
technologies", while studying the corporate world has turned his
attention to the K-12 sector. He finds that the rise of e-learning, in
its various forms is allowing the same pattern to develop. He believes
that 50% of secondary school courses will be provided via e-learning by
approximately 2019. He is looking at the technology under optimum use
and not as it has been implemented in schools up to the present time,
mapping bricks into clicks, so to speak. Looking at the events as
discussed above, it is becoming increasingly clear that he may be
conservative in his estimates.
In addition to the entry of the
for-profits, the appearance of the ECHS format will prove to be
extremely disruptive since it falls in niches which current governmental
regulations and conservative interests will find hard to control. The
academic and economic advantages are too significant. Christensen’s
model fits well, but the timeline will be shortened.
What could happen in Minnesota may
be informative. For the 2009 school year, many districts are facing
significant shortfalls. Most are meeting this by cutting faculty,
programs, and, even school days. But none of these schools are talking
to each other about sharing courses virtually or combining programs
using the internet in order to focus on their core courses needing a
facility. Many of these latter courses such as art are being cut when,
in fact, clever realignment might allow these brick space courses to
actually be expanded. As we see with complex dynamic models, this leaves
a sufficiently large hole in the didactic catalogue inviting the private
for-profit sector to step into the void.
Second, there have always been
selective institutions at all grade levels: private schools, honors
programs and selective admission post secondary institutions. Many of
these will survive, little changed academically. The twin campuses of
St. Johns University with their classic education serve as a
paradigmatic example. The Carnegie ranked Research I institutions, both
private and public will be able to also maintain their selective stance
being largely supported by means other than tuition. But as the demand
for bachelor prepared students increases and the traditional model for
delivery and funding gets increasingly more expensive, the alternatives
will gain acceptance.
Christensen’s path is for the
disruptive technology to fill an underserved, non-price sensitive niche.
Once a foothold is established, the technology will be able to compete
against the current providers on price or value. The private for-profits
in K-12 education follow this model. They provide courses and
certification to many such as home schooled students and students in
rural areas where program choice is limited. They price their product
below what it costs the public schools to deliver, if they could provide
these programs. And the private for-profits are now able to compete on
price to the extent that they can discount their courses to public
schools for redistribution.
The results of these programs are
proven. The economics of these programs show the potential of
significant savings to the public. What is needed now is the will. In
the movie, The Last Crusade, Indian Jones stands on the edge of a chasm
with the "Holy Grail" on the other edge and the promise of an
"invisible" bridge to take him across. It takes just that level of faith
for the educational community to be willing to take that step forward.
Only the task has been made easier in this case. The early adopters in
the private and public sectors have made it across. Another grant or
another study need not be done. The bridge(s) exist; only fear and turf
cloud the ability to see.
