The Post-School Era- Are we there?

Recent events in Wisconsin have accelerated the pace of change of education in the state. For years, we've been saying "Education must change to survive." I'm not sure everyone was convinced of that, especially those of us inside the educational establishment of K-12 public schools. We have historically been somewhat insulated from market forces. Enter Governor Scott Walker and his budget repair bill. This may not have been the way we wanted the change to occur, but it certainly has forced us to meet the challenge head-on of staying relevant and competitive.

As Clayton Christensen predicted, the disrupting change cannot come from the established system, for the system always seeks to preserve itself.

Governor Walker's initiatives include the following:

• Lifting enrollment caps on charter schools
• Allowing open enrollment to happen basically year-round
• Allowing any UW 4-year university to open as many charter schools as they want
• Charter school teachers need not be licensed teachers- anyone with a bachelor's degree can be a teacher
• State aid cuts to districts

When I thought about the combined effect of these initiatives, a phrase came to my mind: "the post-school era." (I think it's original. Maybe not.) The point is, the ability to create an unlimited number of charter schools, which can draw an unlimited number of students from anywhere in the state, at any time, and being able to hire anybody with a bachelor's degree to teach them, means that students and parents will be free to move at will to whatever "school" they like best.

When I think about the online schools that exist, with their comparatively miniscule facility budgets, the ability for each teacher to have 50+ students, and the lack of transportation costs, it means that online charter schools will be able to deliver instruction at drastically cheaper rates than brick and mortar public schools. So, no need for public schools, right? 

Well, not quite.

One important distinction between traditional K-12 schools and our online counterparts is the custodial function of K-12 schools. Much of the instructional function can be digitized and delivered online, asynchronously, but K-12 schools still have a custodial responsibility to care for children while their parents work. I think that in the past, we have seen this as a "degredation" of our profession, as if parents think we are primarily babysitters who happen to teach kids some stuff. (This feeling is reinforced whenever we call a snow day that parents think we shouldn't have called.)

I propose that we focus on our custodial function as a strength that we can use to market ourselves. In an era when education can be provided easily without a physical school building, we will be hard pressed to compete with virtual charter schools who can hire anybody with a bachelor's degree to deliver canned content online. However, they cannot supervise students or take care of their physical needs online. Our facilities and qualified staff, which are our greatest expenses, must also be our greatest assets.

If we are successful, we will excel and families will flock to us. If we are not, then we may very well usher in a post-school era.