In the second chapter of Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen he describes the various reason’s for schooling that have been present through out the history of organized education in America. Christensen describes the 4 jobs schools have been “hired” for:
Job 1 Preserve/Inculcate Democracy
Job 2 Provide something for every student
Job 3 Keep the U.S. Competitive
Job 4 Eliminate Poverty
I can see his point on most of these issues. Schools have been charged with fulfilling these “needs” for society but, I think he leaves one job out: Whipping Boy.
Historically a whipping boy was a boy brought up together with a young prince and required to take the punishment for the latter’s misdeeds. Because this is a blog post and not a thesis I can say this type of thing.
The reason I bring up this “job” of schools is that I have a great deal of trouble squaring Christensen’s hypothesis about schools needing to innovate and become student centered learning places because his theory of innovation surpassing “business as usual” relies on the profit motive. In his theory an untapped market is found, a product/service is provided that was not available before, the market expands and overtakes the previous model. This, however, relies on equal players in the market. For example, I can sell apples on the corner, just like anybody, and if there is a market, I can make a living. But, with education there is a different relationship between the “customer” and the established competition. The prince/politicians have always had education to take their beatings for them. If politicians allow for poverty to destroy lives, then education can be expected to clean up the mess, and if it can’t well then there is something wrong with education and it needs to be fixed. If politicians can’t provide equal opportunities for all of its citizens through the job market then the schools can take a few licks if they can’t make everybody above average.
Most of all, the “politics/business as usual” needs the whipping boy to stick around. It is vital that the whipping boy is available to take the punishment and the blame for the princes.
I mean, what would happen if education, despite politics as usual, actually defeated the achievement gap as some 90/90/90 schools have done. Then who could we blame for the lack of real choice provided to all manner of disenfranchised people in our country?
This is why the innovation theory doesn’t work. How can the whipping boy innovate when the prince is the one in charge? Maybe the most profound innovation would be to set the whipping boy free. It worked in Finland.
