Over the past week, we've seen some cautionary signs coming out of some of the new public school designs in k-12 education. We've seen certain growing pains from the "flexible school" model coming out of Rocketship Education. Education Week blogger, and public school protectionist Walt Gardener wrote a post today called "Bad News for Charter Schools"where he talked about the charter school closings in various states and making the sweeping conclusion that charters are not working. And folks like Diane Ravitch believe wholeheartedly that charter schools are a "colossal mistake" and uses a conspiracy theory claiming that they give public money to private corporations. These are VERY predictable responses and certainly not surprising to those who understand the principles of disruptive innovation theory:
- If an innovation is in fact "disruptive," it will start out as low cost and likely inferior to the existing products or services in the market.
- It will target areas of non-consumption
At this point, some charter schools may be sustaining innovations and not disruptive innovations. Are they targeting a different set of consumers? Are they being deployed disruptively? If a charter school is controlled by the local school district, will it be able to disrupt the status quo? This was part of the debate in 2012 in Georgia and other states about whether there should be alternate authorizers at the state level for public charter schools.
Is it too soon to gauge whether certain innovations are having the favorable impact expected of them? In some cases, the answer is YES. In a recent article titled "Schooling Rebooted,"we see a case study about Carpe Diem Collegiate High School and Middle School in Yuma, Arizona. As the article states:
Carpe Diem has delivered some promising results, while serving a student population that was 46 percent low-income in 2011–12: Carpe Diem ranks among Arizona’s 10 highest-performing charter schools, outperforming Arizona’s statewide four-year graduation rate five of the six years between 2007 and 2012 (with a 96 percent graduation rate in 2011), and regularly exceeding the Arizona average at every grade level on the statewide assessment.The Carpe Diem model is also cost-effective. It requires fewer teachers per student than a traditional school, so Carpe Diem has achieved those results with only about $5,300 of the $6,300 per pupil allocation, according to Ryan Hackman, the school’s chief operating officer.
With new school designs, it's still a mixed bag. Some models will be successful, and some may not, But we know unequivocally that charter schools have certain accountability systems that traditional public schools do not. If a charter school does not meet the requirements of its charter, it can be shut down. Traditional public schools have historically not faced the threat of closure.
At the end of the day, the defenders of the status quo expect charter schools and other new innovations to become instant successes. That's not how innovation works. These folks would be mindful that reforms and evolution take time, and can be painful at times. Do you think the American Revolution was a smooth and orderly transition? Far from it! However, the analogy here is that we must have the courage to change our system because if you ask college professors or look at the abilities of our international graduates, the status quo is not an option.