Clayton Christensen |

Fred Barnes interviewed Jeb Bush for the Wall Street Journal’s weekend interview, and in the article Barnes reveals what Florida’s former governor is reading at the moment on his Amazon Kindle—Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.

This is yet again another flattering moment for us, but the whole interview is worth reading. As Barnes says it, “[Bush is] an unorthodox Republican who latches onto reform ideas wherever he finds them.”

Bush makes some thought-provoking points throughout the piece. He says rightly that education should move beyond Carnegie units to a mastery-based system. This is one of the most promising things online learning can bring, and it is something that should be embedded in policy for all online learning programs. He also recognizes the potential of online learning to move us toward a customized, student-centric system:

“‘It’s not based on seat time,’ he says. ‘It’s whether you accomplished the task. Now we’re like GM in its heyday of mass production. We don’t have a flourishing education system that’s customized. There’s a whole world out there that didn’t exist 10 years ago, which is online learning. We have the ability today to customize learning so we don’t cast young people aside.’”

Bush also praises Meg Whitman later in the piece as someone who would be a good governor because, among other things, she “lived and managed and led through the disruptive changes that are going on in our lives.”

As the governor during the initial growth of the biggest disruptive innovation in education policy in the form of the Florida Virtual School, he is probably in one of the better positions to know.

In my last post, I wrote about an article by Tamar Lewin of the New York Times that talked about the escalating costs of traditional universities in the U.S.

Lewin has written a string of these articles. Another one, also highlighting the escalating costs of traditional universities in the U.S., points to a different solution from my previous post. This one, “Going Off to College for Less (Passport Required)” shows students making a rational tradeoff for a different experience for less money—by going overseas.

In a third article, Lewin writes about how many private colleges are worrying about a dip in enrollment. For those universities whose budgets are driven by tuition dollars, this will have a significant negative impact. As of December, according to a survey by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, roughly two-thirds of 371 private institutions said “they were greatly concerned about preventing a decline in enrollment.”

At a time of tightening budgets, applications to the more affordable state universities are higher, but states like California and Florida are having to cap enrollment numbers. I wrote about this earlier here.

A key takeaway? Many existing institutions will be hurt, but in the long run, let disruption take its course so we can find better, lower cost arrangements for these students.

A fourth article by Lewin is equally fascinating—and provides a possible hint of how this could unfold. Titled Israeli Entrepreneur Plans a Free Global University That Will Be Online Only, it talks about Shai Reshef’s plans to start the University of the People and to leverage open courses and social networking to offer a robust online university experience. I’ve speculated about this before (here for example)–saying open courses weren’t by themselves disruptive as offered by MIT and Yale, for example, but if an entrepreneur came along and patched them together into a degree with some other services around it, they could be quite an enabler for a monumental disruption. What do you think about this?

For those from the College Board and the like who want to see 55 percent of Americans attaining postsecondary credentials and realize affordability is important (see the report Coming to Our Senses), note that subsidies from third parties likely won’t help us in the long term because they won’t address the fundamental cost structures at play; allowing disruption to work and having lower cost options move in will.

The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and its director for education technology, Bill Thomas, have issued three reports in the last couple of months that are must reads for those interested in the ongoing disruptive innovation of online learning.

The first one, titled “Making the Critical Transition to Stable Funding for Virtual Schools,” is a vital one for policymakers in particular to read. The report contains several insights about how state leaders can and should move beyond year-to-year appropriations for state schools that cap enrollments at arbitrary numbers to a sustainable and responsive funding model. Read it here.

The second one asks an audience that too few studies talk to in this field. Yes, that’s right, it <gasp> actually asks students what they think. Particularly as we think about the potential to use online learning to move toward a student-centric learning environment, the report “Do Online Courses Work for Middle Grades and High School Students? Online Students Have Their Say” is a good one to read.

For online courses to be effective, they need good, high-quality teachers. SREB addresses this question in the last of its three reports, titled “Online Teachers: What Can SREB States Do to Ensure Competence and Quality?” Again, for policymakers interested in making sure a pipeline exists for high quality teachers in this environment, this report is a must read.

And after having read them, we’d love to know what you think. Please write a response and give us your thoughts. It would be great to have a dialogue here about all of them.

One of the core findings from our studies of disruptive innovation is that in order for an incumbent to catch a disruption, an organization often must set up an autonomous unit complete with its own business model – its own resources, processes, priorities, and profit/revenue formula – with the mission to seize a nascent opportunity, grow, and be unencumbered by the parent organization. It’s not at all an easy thing to do; we don’t see it happen that often.

As disruption increasingly comes to higher education, on the surface anyway Tiffin University appears to be taking a page from the Innovator’s Solution as it sets up an autonomous online two-year degree program for an associate of arts degree in general studies. They’ve even branded it differently from the parent: Ivy Bridge College.

You can read about it on this Inside Higher Ed article. The online degree program will fill a gap in offerings in the space and target many who are overshot by existing offerings or are nonconsumers, including students who can’t afford a four-year college, those who would have to commute or leave a job to relocate or something to attend college, students who aren’t confident enough or ready to go to college yet, students with disabilities, and those who were home-schooled who might prefer to study at home initially.

They are partnering with some interesting players like InsideTrack, who provide student coaching services. The idea of the degree is to feed the students into bachelor programs at other institutions ultimately.

Are there other examples of this? This seems to be quite different from the MIT OpenCourseWare decision and Yale posting its lectures to iTunesU, for example.

Even as concerns mount that too many of our nation’s children are unprepared for and not attending college, thousands of students in California are clamoring each year for such a college experience in the state’s university system.

Unfortunately for them, the California State University system announced it will cut back its total enrollment by about 10,000 students next fall. That is 10,000 students to whom California is now saying in essence, “Maybe college isn’t that important for you after all.” Talk about a mixed message.

Increasingly, policymakers, foundations, academics, and educators are lining up behind the goal of students not just graduating from high school, but also graduating ready for a postsecondary education. The Gates Foundation places its muscle squarely behind this goal. Academics point out that now, more than ever before, a postsecondary education is necessary to command a reasonable wage in the workforce. And educators like Larry Rosenstock, CEO of High Tech High in San Diego, speak persuasively about the need for students to graduate well prepared for college.

Judging from attendance in the full-time and part-time programs at California State University campuses, many students are getting the message. Roughly 460,000 students are enrolled this year.  But if this number is capped at 450,000 for next year, realization of the college-ready goal will be an empty pledge.

Chancellor Charles Reed said the need to scale back enrollment was caused because of a strain on the university’s physical plant. Thanks to overcrowding and under-funding, he said, there are simply not enough classrooms and other resources available to provide students with a quality education that can promise them an on-time graduation (“CSU to turn away 10,000 students,” San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/2008).

Although the State University’s predicament and actions are perhaps understandable given the economy and falling endowment, there is a better solution for California’s children: attend college online.  Embracing online education for many students addresses the challenges the system faces, both financially and in terms of physical space.

Online learning is an affordable option. Tuition at Capella University, an online, accredited university, for example, runs to $930 for a 3-credit Bachelor of Science course. That figure does not take into account any financial aid or scholarship grants. At UMassOnline, an online division of the University of Massachusetts, undergraduate courses range from $425 to $1,200 in cost regardless of a student’s residency. This often works out to be less costly than enrolling in and taking a full-time program at one of the University’s physical campuses.

North Carolina has come up with a different creative option. Its Learn and Earn Online program allows students to take college courses online when they are in high school and earn an associate degree or up to two years of college credits.

Online learning at the postsecondary level is booming as students find it to be a great option for their needs. The University of Phoenix is perhaps the best-known disruptor in the space. Its online enrollment has grown rapidly. According to the Babson Survey Research Group, the percentage of students at U.S. postsecondary institutions taking at least one online course doubled between 2002 and 2006. The rapid growth has continued as 3.9 million students took at least one online course during the fall 2007 term.

With California facing an increasingly gloomy fiscal future, it is time to figure out innovative ways to do more with less. The concerns of California’s children must be paramount as we consider different options. There are many opportunities that the introduction of online learning offers—not only for those being turned away from the system but also for those admitted currently to the CSU system. Online learning streamlines the delivery of learning, which can increase its quality and consistency. It is affordable. And it allows for customization for an individual’s needs.

Don’t slam the door in these would-be students’ faces. Open up a learning pathway for them that has no doors at all.

Michael Petrilli has a good article in the Fall 2008 Education Next titled “Arrested Development: Online training is the norm in other professions. Why not in K-12 education?”

He points out how online training has swept through professional development in other industries—almost 40 percent of professional development was online in 2006, according to the American Society for Training and Development—and asks why that percentage is considerably lower in preK-12 education.

Why indeed given that it seems like it might suit teachers far better and make for better training? (Take a look at the training that PBS’s TeacherLine or CaseNEX, a seemingly disruptive spin-off from the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, offers, Petrilli says.)

Petrilli gives some reasons for why this might be: Institutional resistance because district professional development staff might see their jobs disappear. Traditional professional development providers (including colleges of education) have a vested interest in stopping it. Many teachers receive a stipend in over half of the largest school districts for participating in professional development outside of the regular school day. And in the traditional model, teachers receive credit for merely showing up, whereas online they might have to demonstrate mastery to get credit.

How fast this is adopted, Petrilli suggests, will be a proxy for showing how calcified the education system is.

That makes sense, and therefore it seems the best way to implement online professional development is disruptively—allowing it to compete where the alternative, and therefore the resistance to change, is nothing at all. For example, implement it in rural districts perhaps that cannot afford traditional professional development. Or offer it for subjects the traditional professional development doesn’t cover.

Another line of thinking might say online training will gain currency as online learning for students grows, since much of the professional development for teachers there is offered online—and seems far more systematized and meaningful than the typical school district’s.

The other side of the argument is that online learning may only gain currency when more teachers themselves have been trained online—and therefore are comfortable with the medium and its ability to deliver meaningful results. This is an interesting question for future study—and something on which to keep a close eye. Disruptions in higher education from online universities for adult learners that offer more education training and certification may move this forward, too.

It’s been an exciting week in the U.S. An historic presidential election concluded with a landmark result of which all of us can proud regardless of our political views. We look forward to seeing what an Obama presidency will mean for the future of education. In the President-elect’s past remarks, he has spoken eloquently about the potential for technology to play a game-changing role in education. We hope he continues to embrace this potential and helps open disruptive paths for such innovations as online learning that hold the potential for game-changing transformations.

An upcoming book helps show why this is important. Titled The Development of Giftedness and Talent Across the Life Span, it has some interesting insights on the nature of giftedness—namely how academic talent can wax and wane over time and how it can be nurtured and taught, according to an Education Week article previewing the book.

One implication of this work is that the structure of schools doesn’t always support this fluidity. “Children might move in and out of ‘gifted’ programs more frequently, based on their individual needs,” says the article in paraphrasing the book’s co-editor, Frances Degen Horowitz.

There are obviously many problems in doing this in current schools. For example, I imagine moving children in and out of gifted classes might crush their confidence and hurt their feeling of self-efficacy. It goes to the problem of how social promotion and holding a child back both have inherent problems associated with them.

Online or computer-based learning introduced disruptively can help solve this tradeoff. By being individually paced but not taking a child out of his or her social environment in essence, it allows for children to take what is most relevant for their individual needs at any given time. In theory it can also allow children to match with others from around the world that are in similar places, but not create static environments that could have negative effects on development. And for those children who remain “advanced” compared to their social peers, it can allow them to continue to work through challenging material to grow and expand their horizons without becoming bored—an exciting proposition to allow all children to realize their fullest potential and promise.

*Note: I will be out of the country and on vacation starting tomorrow for the next two weeks. I will not be posting to the blog during this time. I will resume my regular weekly posts upon my return.

I had planned originally to blog again about higher education, but this has been a busy few days of activity around the book and its themes so I thought it would be worthwhile posting some links to the various events and presentations and offering a few brief reflections.

Clay and I gave a presentation at the American Enterprise Institute along with Jason Hwang on the 27th titled “Disruptive Innovation in Education and Health Care” (video and audio are online here). Checker Finn was on the education panel with us as well which made for a lively discussion.  Education Week’s Andrew Trotter wrote an article about the event as well.

The next day I was in Arizona where I had the opportunity to keynote NACOL’s Virtual School Symposium. This was an exciting and informative event with somewhere around 1,100 people in attendance. It’s a conference that, just like online learning, has grown by leaps and bounds in the last couple of years.

I’ve said this before, but NACOL, the International Association for K12 Online Learning, is doing some great work in this space. The organization is a great source of information and is helping sponsor useful research to further the field.

Among the worthwhile reports that I recommend highly and that you can find from NACOL’s site are the latest issue of Threshold magazine and the latest Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning report (just came out on October 23rd). These reports help show that online learning really is booming and will help any reader understand what it really is.

There has been lots of activity on the Web about these events—many praising and others with insightful criticisms. One of the most interesting things, however, that I observe is the difference in conversations taking place. When you are in the Beltway or talking with people who have been in the thick of education for years, although many do see the promise online learning holds, many also don’t believe it’s happening and growing in disruptive fashion. If you are in the actual space and seeing the number of entrepreneurs and districts diving in and having successes, however, you see a very different picture. This is not necessarily surprising given how disruptive innovation works, but it is interesting.

Lastly, Scott McLeod, an associate professor and coordinator of the Educational Administration Program at Iowa State University and the director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), delivered a great presentation on the Web at the K12 Online Conference. His thesis in essence is that the coming disruptive changes necessitate new leadership models for schools. It’s a 20-minute presentation that summarizes some core concepts from our work and is well worth watching.

Clayton Christensen and I have a new article out in Business Week online today in the Viewpoint section. Titled “McCain: Education’s Disruptor-in-Chief?” the article is about the presidential election and Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama’s respective positions on how disruptive innovation can affect positive change in how today’s classrooms operate. The article leads with McCain and how he has latched onto many of the core ideas from disruption and our book. It then talks about the great promise Obama’s vision of technology has for education, especially if implemented disruptively.

There is also an accompanying slide show that the editors at Business Week put together that profiles 15 disruptive innovations in education.

As always, we welcome your comments on this site.