It seems to me that if we're going to make systemic changes in how we deliver learning opportunities for our children, we're going to need to do a better job of creating the public's sense of urgency and the public will to provide support and political cover for our leaders who toil every day in their buildings and districts. Disruptive innovations of the sort made possible by technology are exciting and are providing evidence that there are ways to provide quality education that we heretofore have not even thought of, but how will they gain currency?
The PDK poll results (my school's great; everyone else's schools are C-) phenomenon still works against true innovation. How can we mobilize support for a new way of doing things that can protect visionary leaders from risking losing their jobs as they present the brutal facts to their patrons?
It seems we have parallels in what is happening at the national level with the new administration's efforts to rescue us all from this economic crisis. What can we learn from their efforts? Do we have a "bi-partisan" commitment to helping parents and other taxpayers understand that the 21st century survival skills detailed by Tony Wagner are not a retreat from the "hard academic skills", not soft skills that will water down our educational offerings, not another move from educational leaders to sidestep accountability? How do we frame this so people can understand that traditional educational structures must change if their children are to be successful in this very new world?
Troyce Fisher
Troyce:
You mention disruptive innovation, and as I am currently reading Christensen's book on the subject, I have been giving this some thought. He points out that in industry the development of disruptive innovations typically takes place OUTSIDE the established marketplace--expanding into some previously unserved market with lower expectations. There an immediate need can be served (althought not generally the same need as the existing customers) and the product gradually improved (lowered price, greater efficiency or reliability, etc) until it begins to challenge the existing market. He is quite clear that schools don't operate in this way--but also points out that there are, in fact, unserved markets in education. These include AP courses or electives in buildings or districts too small to offer them in the accepted way. It may also include rural districts where NCLB highly qualified requirements has challenged the practice of the biology teacher teaching chemistry.
From grade nine on upward there are in any urban district substantial numbers of students who are "non-consumers" of education. Some charter schools have attempted to develop programs to serve these various un/underserved populations--for whom the competing alternative is nothing at all. I am beginning to think that this may be one of the most appropriate roles for charters. It occurs to me that the few that I have seen that have succeeded have done so by offering something appropriate to a small niche of students whose needs are not, or poorly, met within the public schools. Some of these are quirky learners--highly individual, internally motivated, bored out of their minds by high school and insufficiently engaged by the "perks" of high school (football games, prom, etc) to want to stay. Others are the numbers of kids who have been push-outs since the beginning--who have always had better relationships with the counseling and disciplinary staff than their classroom teachers, who begin by walking away from classes and end by walking away from school altogether.
In many states, school districts have the ability to dabble in charters themselves (thus enabling some things like access to buildings and union cooperation). From a district perspective, I would suggest maximizing this opportunity to develop "disruptions" among unserved/underserved populations. There is a need to ensure that these opportunities be given the freedom that they need to develop (my own district has tended to view them as "keeping kids in the district" rather than developing anything new--with the result being that technology or innovations are "crammed" onto the existing school structures, rather than exporing innovative uses).
From a state or policy perspective, I would suggest that charters be viewed as an appropriate greenhouse for developing such innovations. This would mean that in order to open their doors, they would have to provide clarity about the population that they intend to serve, why they are currently not served well, and how they hope to make a change. Then fund them fully and provide researchers to follow the results. Instead of just switching out the players and expecting a cheaper product, treat charters as the experiment that they may serve best as.
I suspect that some of this is already happening--particularly in the development of online courses for drop-out recovery and prevention. I would say that they are currently pretty clunky, computerized versions of GED workbooks. But, there is a "market" even for that--and the possibility of developing more engaging models that make use of the full capabilities of the technology. Then administrators who resist using them in the regular classroom will be the ones needing political cover.