@ArnettTom In response to your request, here are my initial thoughts on a strategy for applying disruptive innovation theory to American public schools.
(Citations:
The Innovator's Dilemma:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innov…
The Prosperity Paradox:
christenseninstitute.org/books/the-pros…
)
1/21
(Citations:
The Innovator's Dilemma:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innov…
The Prosperity Paradox:
christenseninstitute.org/books/the-pros…
)
1/21
Here are two rules that govern my thinking about changing institutions. They are based on thinking of these institutions as feedback networks.
Rule #1. Make a clean distinction between:
1.stating what is wrong and what must change, and
2.stating how to create that change.
2/21
Rule #1. Make a clean distinction between:
1.stating what is wrong and what must change, and
2.stating how to create that change.
2/21
Be careful not to conflate these two in your thinking.
Rule #2. Understand that the incumbent system you want to change is meeting the needs of many people (both external clients and internal agents) and is full of robust defenses against change (“homeostasis”).
3/21
Rule #2. Understand that the incumbent system you want to change is meeting the needs of many people (both external clients and internal agents) and is full of robust defenses against change (“homeostasis”).
3/21
Attempting to alter the incumbent's behaviors directly is like pushing back on the outputs of a system containing many internal negative feedback loops. Each active element will respond quasi-linearly to external forces, up to a limit.
4/21
4/21
If a local limit is exceeded something might break locally but the surrounding parts of the network will often create a workaround.
5/21
5/21
In existing institutions such as the American public schools, the self-interest of almost every person involved in schools and their governance is its own negative feedback loop that contributes to the incumbent system’s homeostasis.
6/21
6/21
Further, because of the deliberately decentralized structure of public-school governance across America, whereas you might be able to flip one local subsystem you won’t be able to use the same tactics to flip the whole system.
7/21
7/21
The conventional revolutionary approach is either to apply overwhelming force to the system’s outputs, which could break it, or to burn it all down. In either case this opens up the field to opportunists and the challenger has lost control.
8/21
8/21
Rule #3. This is how I understand how to apply what I have learned from “The Innovator’s Dilemma”.
(The bottom line: Grow a challenger well out of the way until it is competent enough and the incumbent's clients will switch on their own.)
9/21
(The bottom line: Grow a challenger well out of the way until it is competent enough and the incumbent's clients will switch on their own.)
9/21
The purpose of a disruptive plan is to provide a superior alternative service (the challenger) to the incumbent system's external clients that they will (eventually) adopt at scale out of self-interest.
10/21
10/21
The bad news: If the challenger’s technology is immature, as it will be almost by definition, it will be no match for the incumbent.
The good news: The homeostasis built into the incumbent will inhibit its response to competition, up to a point.
11/21
The good news: The homeostasis built into the incumbent will inhibit its response to competition, up to a point.
11/21
The strategy: Maintain the apparent threat of the challenger below a threshold so that the incumbent cannot muster the internal energy necessary to overcome its own homeostasis and reorganize itself to oppose the challenger.
12/21
12/21
The way you do this:
you avoid any appearance of competition (e.g., you avoid serving the incumbent’s clients), and
you find a new set of clients that can be well served by the challenger, even with its present state of its technology.
13/21
you avoid any appearance of competition (e.g., you avoid serving the incumbent’s clients), and
you find a new set of clients that can be well served by the challenger, even with its present state of its technology.
13/21
These new clients might well be in a world that is barely visible to the incumbent; so much the better.
As The Prosperity Paradox points out, these new clients might well be underserved and must be chosen so that they welcome the challenger.
14/21
As The Prosperity Paradox points out, these new clients might well be underserved and must be chosen so that they welcome the challenger.
14/21
It even helps if serving these new clients seems a bit ridiculous to the incumbent, as this will create incentives among the incumbent’s internal agents not to take it seriously, for doing so will reflect adversely on them.
15/21
15/21
It also helps if the challenger can attach itself to an existing institution of the new clients. (For example, The Prosperity Paradox describes the creation of a life insurance industry on top of the cell phone market by adding a small increment to the regular bill.)
16/21
16/21
Application to American public schools.
Right now, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are living in a unique teachable moment. The system is amenable to change, as it never is in normal times.
17/21
Right now, at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are living in a unique teachable moment. The system is amenable to change, as it never is in normal times.
17/21
(Consider the current behavior of the US Congress shortly after the recent impeachment/trial of the President.) I see an analogy to the way soil liquifies under certain conditions in an earthquake.
18/21
18/21
In the case of American schools, the incumbent’s clients are America’s parents. Right now, and, I suspect, at least through this summer, many will be beset by homeschooling.
As it turns out, there are already homeschooling networks in America.
19/21
As it turns out, there are already homeschooling networks in America.
19/21
Whether the existing homeschooling networks can be used as a nucleus of a challenger to public schools, and whether this can be done in a way that avoids being massively challenged by the incumbent, is a topic for more careful consideration elsewhere.
20/21
20/21
There might also be other potential nuclei.
One consideration favorable to homeschooling is that it is regulated by state law, so it might be possible to find fertile ground for a nucleus for the challenger in a small set of friendly states.
21/21
One consideration favorable to homeschooling is that it is regulated by state law, so it might be possible to find fertile ground for a nucleus for the challenger in a small set of friendly states.
21/21
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