Tinkering Toward Utopia

In “Shooting Bottle Rockets at the Moon: Overcoming the Legacy of Incremental Education Reform,” Thomas Kane says:

…we must be able to make a plausible argument that a given set of reforms will produce improvements of the desired magnitude.   There is no reason to expect that non-controversial, incremental policies such as more professional development, incrementally smaller class sizes, and better facilities will produce substantial change.  The current backlash against the Common Core and new teacher evaluation systems is, at least in part, a result of our long history of underpowered, incremental reforms.   By failing to worry about magnitudes, we have led politicians and voters to expect school reform without controversy.   We cannot return to shooting bottle rockets when Saturn V’s are required.  We need to recognize the magnitude of the changes required to achieve our goals.

I wonder what David Tyack and Larry Cuban would say.

Read the entire analysis here.

HBS gives us HBX

Harvard Business School is wrestling with an interesting problem: how to enter the world of online education without undermining its own program. Rejecting traditional online (wow, did I just put those two words together?) university programs or MOOCs, HBS is launching HBX this month, attempting to offer something unique in the crowded world of online education. The NY Times covers the story here.

For those of us who learn and teach online, it will be interesting to watch and see if HBX offers something new, or just another grab for its share of the marketplace. In any case, it’s fascinating to see a business school attempt to practice what it preaches.