President Obama and his education team spent significant time leading up to the election crafting a comprehensive and carefully thought out education plan. From reforming No Child Left Behind to bolstering early childhood education, almost nothing in the U.S. education system was left untouched; there is something for everyone. With the stimulus bill now signed, schools will receive a big injection of funds from the federal government to create, in the campaign's words, a "plan for lifetime success through education."
There are some valuable insights in the plan, but as the cliche goes, the devil is in the details. It's certainly easier to charge education rather than change it.
An open question is whether the education sector is merely receiving a large sum of funds to bolster and maintain its monolithic system or if this spending will transform it into something fit for the 21st-century. Studies show that investing in education produces economic gains, but the investment must be in effective programs.
Let's look at three areas in particular:
1. There is a strong emphasis and spending on early childhood learning. Not much is clear in education research, but one thing that is clear is that the earliest years in a child's life matter most for their future development. Obama has taken this to heart. Creating effective early childhood programs for children from low-income families that attack the root of their cognitive and social deficiencies is undoubtedly a good idea. The problem is that merely funding more Head Start programs and the like won't get the job done because, as studies have shown, many of these programs haven't proven to be effective and don't address the root causes of children's deficits. Any increase in funding should be tied to programs adopting what is known from sound research and from successful implementations, but also should be made with an eye toward continuing to learn what works and for whom since this is still highly uncertain.
2. The stimulus bill increases funding for school modernization projects. The federal government currently funds Internet access for schools, yet many still don't have high-speed Internet. Helping schools install and upgrade broadband infrastructures so that they can take advantage of the emerging opportunities offered by online learning (a disruptive innovation that is making big inroads in public education and has the potential to bring us toward a more student-centric education system) makes sense. Importantly, however, school districts must not merely spend to meet today's demands. The federal government should tie the funds for these upgrades to districts actively planning and building for future needs. Exploring creative options like using these funds to not just build networks for the schools but also build wireless networks that can bring low-income communities online as well as the schools would be wise.
3. The bill allocates $650 million for educational technology, such as computers in classrooms. Technology has a big role to play in the future of education, and this move offsets some of the cries that technology funding had been stripped out in the previous eight years. But our research shows that most spending on equipping classrooms with computers hasn't produced much in the way of results. It's not clear why this effort will be any different. Reallocating existing technology dollars toward online learning--from insuring equitable access to improving curriculum and professional development--would be more productive.
So now we kick it over to you. Do you think the bill strikes the proper balance in the above areas, or does it worry you and why? What else would you have thought about when crafting the bill?
This post originally appeared on HarvardBusiness.org.
Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B.
Horn are co-authors along with Curtis W. Johnson of Disrupting Class:
How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns
(McGraw-Hill, June 2008).