In March 2000, the heads of state of the European Union (EU) nations set an ambitious goal for themselves: to make the EU “’the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’” by 2010.  Known as the Lisbon Agenda, this program aimed to revitalize the nations of the EU that had collectively experienced economic stagnation in the years preceding the agreement.  Just as President Obama has identified education in general and college graduation rates in particular (stating that “by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world”) as a vehicle for driving economic growth, the Lisbon Agenda put emphasis on the same.

A 2006 report from the Commission of the European Communities titled “Delivering on the Modernisation Agenda for Universities: Education, Research, and Innovation,” noted that the “modernization of Europe’s universities, involving their interlinked roles of education, research and innovation” is a “core condition” for the success of the Lisbon Agenda.  In that same year, the Spring European Council agreed upon the establishment of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) which would “contribute to improving Europe’s capacity for scientific education, research and innovation, while providing an innovative model to inspire and drive change in existing universities, in particular by encouraging multi-disciplinarity and developing the strong partnerships with business that will ensure its relevance.”  Additionally, the Commission called on member nations to create national systems that allowed for geographic mobility of degrees between various EU member states, greater autonomy with strengthened accountability for universities, incentives for partnerships between universities and the business community, and an increased “employability” of graduates. 

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Today’s higher education environment vis-à-vis the national economic situation has ignited a debate over whether a college degree is worth the cost.  Significant budget cuts in many states have meant that colleges are raising tuitions, increasing fees, and offering less in scholarship money to students.  Few students had enough money saved to pay for college prior to the economic downturn which has had a catastrophic impact on many schools (see my daily headline postings and links in the “Impact of the Economy on Higher Education” section of my blog for some examples).  With less money allotted for scholarships, work study programs, and higher tuitions and fees, more students than ever before are incurring large debts to pay for their college educations.  The current unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent and recent college graduates are reporting extreme difficulties in finding a job.  All of these factors have combined to fuel the debate over whether college is as invaluable as once believed or not valuable at all given recent economic realities.

Within only a couple months of taking office, President Obama announced his goal to increase the national college graduation rate which is woefully low (40.4 percent, according to statistics from the College Board) compared to those of other nations including Japan (53.7 percent), Russia (55.5 percent), and Canada (55.8 percent).  One of the main initiatives associated with President Obama’s plan to boost college graduation rates included a proposal to provide $12 billion in funding to US community colleges over a ten year period.  Per the President’s plan, however, these funds would be for use in improving programs, courses, and facilities; not, in other words, to assist students in paying for their degrees at these schools.  Obama also told community colleges that he would like to see them play a more active role in creating jobs while simultaneously graduating five million more students than current rates by the year 2020. 

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An article in the August issue of Wired magazine about the Khan Academy and how it is changing the rules of education prompted me to write.  Back in 2006 when my neighbor’s son was a middle school student at McDonogh School, I heard his mother describe how the math teachers at McDonogh had created math instructional videos for the students to use to grasp mathematical concepts.  The part that resonated with me was her statement that her son would review the videos from their home computer as many times as necessary to grasp the topic before submitting homework or taking exams.  Although I was a good math student in high school, I remembered the experience of learning new concepts where I would either see the teacher or another student after class in order to better comprehend the methodology for solving the question.  The videos being used by my neighbor’s son substituted for the after class or after school in person tutorials I used to seek out. 

Since APUS courses are offered wholly online with no time for face-to-face instruction, we developed a number of math instructional videos using Camtasia tablet software and embedded them in our classrooms to supplement the instructional materials.  Later, we decided to make our math videos available to everyone on our American Public University iTunesU site  and our APUS Youtube channel.  Comments to the individual videos, primarily in the form of thank you’s, demonstrate the usefulness and the need for technology like this.  More recently, we partnered with McDonogh School to establish a website, www.campusmath.com, to offer primarily math videos to the public for an elementary school through high school curriculum.  While I can’t speak on behalf of McDonogh School, I think that both of our institutions are aligned with the belief that math skills need to be improved and providing access to these videos to teachers, students, and parents may contribute to improved skills without providing the teachers and professors inside of a physical or electronic classroom.

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I attended the NEST 2011 Conference at the University of Pennsylvania last week.  Sponsored by Penn’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) (of which I am a graduate), the conference attempts to match education entrepreneurs with investors, educators, and a policy maker or two.  The two day event included a business plan competition sponsored by Penn GSE and the Milken Family Foundation as well as the Startl Prize for Open Educational Resources in partnership with the Hewlett Foundation.  The latter award is for the “best business plan that leverages openly licensed content to change the paradigm around the production, delivery, sharing, and experience of learning.”

Penn GSE’s Vice Dean, Douglas Lynch, has built a NEST community of approximately 130 people who are committed to encouraging and/or supporting ed entrepreneurs.  Members of the community volunteer as judges for the business plan competition and enjoy meeting like-minded individuals at the conference.   Day one of the conference revolved around presentations by teams from the finalists for the business plan competition.  Alexandre Scialom won a prize for his startup company, theCourseBook.  TheCourseBook.com is a website that lists courses for adult learners and rates them, similar to Yelp.  While the beta prototype for the company is currently limited to a few cities in California, its goal is to widen its span nationally.  The second day of the conference was more interactive with the members of NEST.  After a short talk from Andy Porter, Dean of Penn GSE, members of the group participated in discussions about research and its importance to the education entrepreneurs/business community as well as other topics such as national regulations, for-profit and non-profit ventures, etc.

I congratulate Andy Porter, Doug Lynch and the rest of the team at Penn GSE for sponsoring the NEST conference and initiative.  When a graduate school at one of America’s great research universities can arrange a connection with entrepreneurs, investors, educators, and policy makers, hopefully better communications and understanding at a national level will be a result.

This past week, I was invited to participate on a panel at the Education Innovation Summit organized by ASU SkySong (affiliated with Arizona State University) and NeXtAdvisors.  The goal of the summit’s organizers is to “’curate’ an environment that provides the right mix of wild-eyed education entrepreneurs, value added investors, not-for-profit leaders, progressive policy makers, academic thought leaders, and forward leaning foundations, philanthropists and industry executives.”  Based on the attendees that I met as well as my fellow presenters and panelists, I believe that the organizers hit their mark.

Regardless of the speaker or panel topic, if there was an underlying theme, it was “America’s education system is broken.  There are many good ideas.  If we don’t implement them soon, our nation will suffer.”  Whether it was James Shelton, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement, US Department of Education; Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University; Craig Barrett, retired CEO of Intel Corporation; or Joel Klein, EVP at News Corp and former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; all of them delivered the message that we need to reform our education system.  Dr. Crow talked about how the taxpayers of Arizona are paying twice for inadequately prepared high school graduates who have to take remedial math and reading courses when they matriculate in Arizona’s colleges.  Dr. Barrett listed the many policy studies beginning with A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform that identified the problems in our education system and yet little progress has been made.  Joel Klein said that the perverse incentives with K-12 leave little reason for striving for excellence in teaching and learning.

Despite the big issues that need to be solved, I think this nation has the ability to solve many of these problems.  I left the conference committed to not just focusing on higher education issues, but to see if there are ways that members of our institution can contribute to K-12 innovations and improvements as well.  We have reached the stage where it’s no longer appropriate to say that the problems are someone else’s.  Reforming education is all of our responsibilities and cooperation is needed if we want to improve the lives of the generations behind us.

In February, Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, Louis Caldera, and Louis Soares published a research report entitled “Disrupting College:  How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education.”  The report was sponsored by the Center for American Progress and Innosight Institute.  Christensen is a Harvard Business School professor noted for his study of disruptive innovations that influence industries and a few years ago, he and his colleagues penned a book entitled Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns which I reviewed on my blog.

In this report, Christensen and his co-authors (hereafter abbreviated as Christensen) discuss the potential for online education to be a disruptive influence on higher education with a total cost of education per student 40 percent less than the traditional universities (when you combine the state and federal subsidies with the cost of tuition). 

Probably the most relevant parts of Christensen’s paper are the recommendations at the back for policymakers and traditional universities.   Christensen says that state and federal officials must “honestly ask and answer” two questions.  The first question is “is the traditional universities’ business model sustainable?”  Christensen believes that there are few traditional universities that can answer yes to this question, particularly given the evidence that online education represents a scalable disruptive technology.  The second question is “is the primary stewardship to facilitate the best possible postsecondary education and training for the people in their state or whether they are appointed to be caretakers of the specific institutions that have historically provided higher education.”  If the answer is the former, then officials must include the disrupters in their partnership to ensure that as many as possible receive higher education.  If the answer is the latter, then low cost universities must be framed as “competitors and enemies.”

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