Synopsis

This article observes that the design of the current educational system is based on principles that have been shown to be invalid and is consequently not working. It goes on to suggest an alternative design for the educational system-- one consistent with proven educational principles and which takes full advantage of modern information processing technology. This alternative design will reduce the cost of education while increasing its effectiveness, efficiency and availability.

The Current System

The cost of our educational system has been continally increasing, and increasing at a rate much greater than underlying inflation. Meanwhile, there has been no concommitant increase in the effectiveness of our educational system. In fact, its effectiveness has declined substantially over the past 40 years, while costs have more than tripled, as reflected in the following table, reproduced with permission from Michael Hodges.

Education Productivity Data
Year	Spending/Student (1993 Dollars)	SAT Score	SAT Score/$	Productivity Index (1960=100%)
1960	$1,700	975	0.57	100%
1970	$2,830	948	0.33	58%
1980	$3,835	890	0.23	40%
1985	$4,342	906	0.21	36%
1990	$5,193	900	0.17	30%
1994	$5,400	902	0.17	29%

Certainly there are many factors contributing to this state of affairs, such as:

• The unionization of teachers
• Attempts to improve student self-esteem by lowering standards
• Use of "innovative" but ineffective teaching paradigms (e.g., "new math", "whole-language")
• Affirmative action programs
• Use of the school system as the vehicle for the delivery of a variety of non-educational social services (e.g., school lunch and immunization programs)
• The movement to assuage parents and avoid conflict through grade inflation
• The breakdown of school discipline as a result of the increased litigiousness of our society
.

Potential solutions to these problems have been offered from all sides of the political spectrum. Typically, these solutions include one or more of the following:

• Higher standards
• More testing
• Less testing
• Back to basics
• More innovative methods
• Outcome-based education
• Knowledge-based education
• Increased funding

Ultimately, however, the failure of our educational system, and of most if not all of the palliatives that have been offered to rectify this failure, derive from a common set of invalid assumptions. Some of the principal, invalid, assumptions implicit in the design of the current educational system and/or the "solutions" listed above, include:

• Most people who are hired to be teachers are, or can be made, effective teachers.
Else why would we let them teach our children?
• All children can and should learn at approximately the same rate and at the same ages.
Else why would we lump children of the same age together in classrooms and attempt to teach all members of each lump the same things at the same time?¹
• All children need to learn mostly the same or similar things.
Else why are our school's curricula limited to the same or similar constrained curricula?
• Learning is best achieved as a solitary, competitive activity rather than through a group, cooperative process.
Else why do we require individual students to perform most tasks alone and treat cooperation among students as "cheating"?
• Children learn best when information is pushed into them.
Else why do we force them to go to school and attempt to force them to learn material in which they may or may not have any interest?
• Children learn best in a classroom environment surrounded by many other children.
Else why do we herd them together in classrooms, in groups of 20, 30 or more, for six or more hours each school day?
• Children learn best when they spend extended, contiguous periods in a formal educational institution engaged in activities directly, and primarily, dedicated to the learning process.
Else why do we force them to spend 180 days or more each year, for thirteen years of their young lives, in a formal classroom environment.

None of these assumptions is substantiable. In fact:

• Most of the people who are employed as teachers are not now, and are not capable of becoming, great teachers. Great teaching combines art, science, and a special personality. While the science of teaching can be taught (although it is presently not taught in this nation's teachers colleges and universities), to be a truly great teacher requires the certain innate skills, a special temperament, and unusual sensititivity. Just as most people can learn the mechanics of writing but few can become great, or even adequate, writers; so too can most people learn the facts and methods of teaching, but few can become great, or even good, teachers. Astonishingly, there are no standards for teaching competence used in the determination of a person's eligibility for a teaching license in any public school system in this country. In Oregon, for example, the state defines a competent teacher² as one who

  "...demonstrates a commitment to:

  • Recognize the worth and dignity of all persons;
  • Encourage scholarship;
  • Promote democratic citizenship;
  • Raise educational standards; and
  • Use professional judgment."

• Children do not all learn at the same rate, nor are they equally susceptible to learning the same kinds of material simply because they are the same age. This fact is formally acknowledged and at least given lip service for those who are abnormally bright, abnormally stupid, or otherwise diagnosed as being "disabled", but is ignored for the vast majority of children.
• Beyond a set of basic skills (e.g., reading, writing and arithmetic) needed for survival in modern society, which can be learned by most children before their 10th birthday, children need not, and should not be required to, learn the same things. Each child, and the adult he will later become, is unique... with a unique set of innate skills, interests and potentials. To impose, for thirteen years, the same, often stultifying, set of information and behaviors on all children, irrespective of their desires, interests and potentials, could justly be construed as cruel and unusual punishment. That, despite protestations to the contrary, this is precisely what our public (and most private) schools do, can be seen in this example provided by a typical California school district and this example, provided by a New Jersey high school.
• Learning is best achieved by different people in different ways. Some people learn best by cooperative experimentation and testing. Others by solitary activities. Few people, however, learn best when they are doing it in response to the demands of others rather than out of their own inate curiousity or desire for mastery.
• The suggestion that a classroom filled with tens or dozens of students is superior as a learning environment to one in which each student's attention can be focused, without distraction, on the material being learned, is invalid on its face. The corollary to this suggestion, that a teacher can be more effective when his attention is divided among tens of students, rather than on a single student, is ludicrous. Yet our current school system compels both students and teachers into this environment, and the great majority, if not all, proposals for improving the school system also embody these critical design flaws.
• The hypothesis that the times at which each child's readiness for learning is highest coincides with the five-day per week, six-to-eight hours per day regimen to which all children are subjected by our school system has been shown to be invalid. In fact, research has revealed there to be no relationship between the number of hours in the school day, or the number of days in the school year, and student achievement.

An Alternative Approach

If the design of our present educational system is based on invalid assumptions, why don't we design a new educational system based on more nearly valid assumptions, and that takes advantage of current and near-future technology to provide a better education, more quickly, more effectively, and less expensively.

• Since there are very few truly great teachers, let's maximize the reach and effectiveness of those few. At the same time, let's save the not-so-great teachers' precious time and energy by ceasing to require each of them to continually recreate the wheel (in this case, lesson plans and curricula). Instead, let's find and employ the few truly great teachers in the development of curricula, lesson plans and content that can be shared by all students using modern information processing technology.
• Since children learn most effectively (i.e., quickly and deeply) when they are interested, let's attach learning opportunities to activities, e.g., games, which are naturally attractive to children. Let's have our great teachers work collaboratively with the best computer game designers to marry the two genres.
• Since life is short and precious, let's not waste our children's lives transporting them to educational facilities when those facilities can be brought to them. Let's give each and every student a computer on which to access the automated game/educational tools developed by the great teachers. And let's give each and every student Internet access through which he can conduct in-depth research quickly and easily from his home.
• Since learning can best be verified and refined when it is applied in real-life situations, let's provide students with facilities to employ and enhance their learning through participation in real-world projects. Where appropriate, those real-world projects can be collaboarative activities with other students under the leadership and tutelage of professionals skilled and experienced in the relevant disciplines. Let's expand facilities in the public schools as necessary to facilitate this process. For example, let's replace classrooms with facilities and equipment to support in-person and remote participation in manufacturing, construction, the arts, computer hardware and software development, social science research and evaluation, marketing, physical scientific research, architectural engineering, and journalism, etc.
• Since education is a life-long process, let's make our educational faciliites equally and readily available to people of all ages.

In support of these new processes, we'll need to make major, structural changes in the educational system. For instance, we'll need to:

• Eliminate mandatory school attendance, since learning, not "being there", is the goal of education, and since learning will now be taking place at home and in other venues.
• Eliminate outmoded, and now virtually meaningless, "diplomas". Instead establish standards and associated measurement tools for the skills required for various professions, careers and vocations.
• Transform existing schools, eliminating most classrooms in favor of additional scientific laboratories, arts & crafts workshops, and other shared equipment and facilities.
• Eliminate classroom "teachers" in favor of project leaders, consultants and advisors who can:
• Answer questions.
• Provide guidance and assistance to students in the performance of their projects.
• Serve as team leaders for group educational activities (e.g., construction projects, coordinated research projects, etc.)
• Assure that these project leaders/consultants are available via telephone and the Internet, as well as in person, to make it easier and less expensive for students to access their expertise. And, whereas the principal requirement for employment as a classroom teacher has been the completion of coursework on pedantics, the principal prerequisite for employment as a consultant/advisor shall be demonstrated achievement and leadership ability in the relevant subject matter.

Cost Comparison

Let's compare the cost of educating children in the current school system with that of the alternative approach described above.

Scenario 1: The current process.

The average cost to educate a child in public schools is about $6,100 per year. These costs are incurred in providing about 180 days/year, 6.5 hours per day of classroom time. An additional hour or so per day is also consumed in transporting children to and from their schools.

Scenario 2: Alternative process.

• Each student is provided by the school system with a new computer and software every three years. Estimated cost: $400/student-year
• Each student is provided by the school system with a dedicated telephone line. Estimated cost: $400/student-year.
• Each student is provided by the school system with an unlimited internet connection. Estimated cost: $300/student-year.
• Each student is provided by the school system with a complete set of instructional software. Estimated cost: $10/student-year³
• A cadre of the best and brightest teachers and software developers will be paid to develop and maintain instructional software of the highest caliber in every school subject. If 2,000 such teachers and software developers are each paid an average of $200,000 per year for this service, the total cost will be $400 million annually, or less than $10/student-year for each of the nation's approximately 46 million students.
• As a result of the use of use of instructional software and the Internet in lieu of classroom instruction, combined with the replacement of full-time classroom teachers by part-time advisors, consultants and project leaders, I estimate that school attendance and the use of school facilities would be reduced by at least one-third. (In fact, it will probably be reduced by at least two-thirds, inasmuch as the total number of years each student will spend in the formal educational system will probably be substantially foreshortened.) Estimated savings: (one-third of $6,100 =) $2,050/year.

Combining the additional cost of ($400 + $400 + $300 + $10 + $10 =) $1,120 with the estimated savings ($2,050) yields a net saving of more than $900 per student-year, or more than 15% of the total cost of education. I believe this estimate of savings is actually quite conservative. In fact, the net savings will probably be closer to 50% than it is to 15%. But the saving of money is not the primary benefit to be gained by a more modern approach to education. The quality and effectiveness of the educational process will be dramatically improved by:

• Providing all children exposure to the very best teachers.
• Providing children with instructional material that goes deeper into every subject than is possible in the current one-size-fits-all school system.
• Permitting children to progress at their own best rates in each subject.
• Providing children with exposure to skilled consultants and leaders in lieu of classroom teachers, most of the latter of whom have little experience in out-of-school, real-world work environments.
• Saving thousands of hours of children's lives that are now wasted transporting them to and from school.

Conclusion

Our current educational system, based on principles that both research and common sense have shown to be mistaken, is, not surprisingly, both costly and ineffective. Redesigning the educational system to take advantage of what we have learned and of modern information processing technology will at once:

• reduce its cost
,
• improve its effectiveness
, and
• increase its relevance
.

The principal barriers to be overcome in order to re-engineer the educational system are those that will be manufactured by the vast and self-serving industry that has developed around, and is sustained by, the weakness and failure of the current system.