This morning I was listening to a report on the opening of the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. You know the scene, every year the car manufacturers get together to roll out their latest models, and congratulate one another with prizes.
It made me think back to what earlier auto shows must have been like. I checked out the website and learned that this was the 21st anniversary of the event going international. Hmmm that would have made it about 1989 when they realized that the world was changing. A bit late, perhaps, considering that in 1979 90% of the cars in America were actually made in America, but by 1989 the transition to a world economy was in full swing.
By 2005 over 60% of the US car market belonged to the Japanese alone. We all lament that the auto industry couldn’t see it coming, or if they did, they didn’t know what to do. If the “Big 3” had realized how the world was fundamentally changing would it have made a difference, or would they still have been trying as hard as they could to bring out those old “new” models every year?
That brings me to the K-Car, the vehicle that defined Chrysler during the 80’s. Google “K-Car” and you will be amazed. Initial articles make you scratch your head in wonder that we aren’t all still driving them. The reports make them sound pretty fantastic. Too bad the company officials kept busy improving a product that was farther and farther out of touch with the world and that was becoming more and more irrelevant to the consumer.
It’s easy to rail against the auto companies and wonder how they could have been so blind. The rest of the world was increasing industrial capacity by leaps and bounds at the same time as they were increasing the available manufacturing work force. This was accompanied by rapid technological advances in the industry, along with global communication and supply networks that were rendering old auto manufacturing models obsolete. Why couldn’t they see? Why didn’t they think to apply a litmus test when roaring through production of the K-Car? If they had asked if their basic business model was the same as it had been twenty years before while the rest of the world was fundamentally changing, they might have at least had a chance. But they were too busy building cars that fewer and fewer people actually wanted while congratulating themselves and handing out awards at the annual NAAS.
So is American education in a ‘Race to the Top in a K-Car’? Try the litmus test – Is there anything in the fundamental nature of the proposals in Race to the Top that could not have been done 20 years ago? No. For instance, look at the four school reform models: Turnaround; Restart; School Closure and Transformation. You’d think we were Rip Van Winkle, waking up after 20 years and picking up like nothing in the world had changed. Any of those 4 could have been done 20 years ago. Every single “new” initiative is based on the notion that school will still be the only acceptable place to acknowledge as a learning environment. But the world has fundamentally changed. Students are wired to one another and to the rest of the world in ways that we didn’t imagine even ten years ago. While there is, of course, mention of the use of technology scattered throughout the administration’s plans, I have yet to hear of one element that would really pass the litmus test. Ignore the changing world; get the new education K-Cars built!
Suppose a student “aces“ the mandatory state assessment in mathematics, but then it is discovered that the student did all of her work on her own, using her iPhone and home computer, studying with teachers and content experts and other students from around the world. Could that happen today? Of course! Are student’s today learning amazing things and producing amazing products outside of school? Of course! Is this a trend that will decrease as learning apps proliferate at geometric rates? Not on your life The world has changed! Mr Duncan, it’s not 1989!! So tell me, should the school get credit for that student’s assessment scores? You tell me. Better yet, tell Arnie Duncan, if you can find him. He will probably be awarding a “Race to the Top” school a ribbon for “Highest Achievement in a 19th Century Institution”. Maybe the winners in the Race To The Top should be given the “Chrysler Award”, in honor of a vanishing but cherished institution!
Tags: Race to the Top, school reform
I like the first point you made there, but I am not sure I could reasonably apply that in a contructive way.
Tom,
Wish I had more time to respond; but, the problem is that people need binoculars to understand thinking that is ahead of current practice and even ahead of conceptions of the near future.