Editor's note: Winston Brady is the Curriculum Director at Thales Academy and Thales Press in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has worked at Thales Academy for over 10 years in various teaching and administrative roles, directing Thales Academy's in-house publishing company, writing textbooks and designing courses. It is aimed at students from Thales Academy and like-minded classical schools across the country.
It is virtually impossible to change the current state of K-12 public schools. A highly entrenched education bureaucracy prevents any positive change. In some cases, the best solution may be “Exit,” a disruptive organizational approach that involves breaking out of the current system and creating a new one rather than trying to reinvent the current model.
Taken out of context, this quote misidentifies the goal of such a “disruptive organizational approach” made famous by the late Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School. The idea of ”exit” or “disruptive innovation” suggests that some industries are so entrenched by powerful players, or whose positions are so well protected by government prerogatives, that there is virtually no competition. I am claiming. With no competition and no new entrants to the market, these companies slowly but surely raise prices and provide inferior products to consumers. Although not perfect, a frequently cited example is that of a taxi and his Uber driver. Uber's app and location-sharing technology disrupted an industry that was no longer working for its customers. Uber customers then had much cheaper fares and customers switching from one industry (taxi) to another had a much better experience.
Similarly, one way to encourage public schools to return to their original mission of educating students is to foster competition in the education sector. Competition motivates all schools, public or private, to better serve the needs of students and parents without taking them for granted. Such competition creates better value for customers (students and parents) and will do so in the field of education as well. The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online home learning has given many parents more exposure to what their children are actually learning, but they aren't satisfied. It became clear that without competition in the education market, these schools lost sight of their mission and quickly lost the trust parents had in their children's education.
We must never lose sight of our overall goals in education and education. As teachers and parents working outside of traditional public schools, the goal of education is to fill the hearts and minds of students with goodness. Such good things include, but are not limited to, math fluency, content-rich history and literature, and stories of noble characters that inspire students to develop their talents to the fullest. yeah. Alongside these goals, we want to build an education system that is essential to the well-being of society, not just in North Carolina, but across the nation.
