Disrupting Class

Disrupting Class is a book by Clayton Christensen, Curtis Johnson and Michael Horn that applies Christensen’s theories around disruptive innovation to schools.  First up a confession:  I started this book twice and did not get past the first chapter!  But after having read the two books mentioned in yesterday’s post, I decided to give it another whirl.  As soon as I got into the second chapter I really began to enjoy it and from there on it was a quick read.

The basic premise of the book is that computers have been introduced into schools in completely the wrong way.  Computers are being used to replace a few minutes a day of instruction by the teacher.  To slightly butcher one of their examples, this is as if the grammophone had been introduced by playing recordings in a concert hall.

If you have something disruptive you need to drive adoption where there is no incumbent.  In the case of the grammophone, that was listening at home.  In the case of computers in school, it is for subjects that are not taught at all at a school – such as AP courses at a small rural school.

The book points out that this is exactly what is finally beginning to happen.  Apparently, enrollment within public education in online classes has “skyrocketed from 45,000 in 2000 to roughly 1 million today” (sadly this statistic does not come with a source in an otherwise meticulously footnoted book).

One reason that this has been taking so long, is that there is not enough competition among schools due to the involvement of the state.  In many markets when a disruptive technology is available, new companies get formed that leverage that technology to be radically different from the existing players.  That is much harder in education.  But it is happening.  For instance, Utah has granted a Public School for an online only high school instigated by David Wiley, who has a wonderful presentation on Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Education.