Why are schools so slow to adapt?

22nd September 2005

posted in economics, edtech, literacy |

Here is a thought provoking juxtaposition:

Today’s Seattle Times has a very interesting article, “Microsoft streamlines to challenge competitors.” Steve Ballmer has reorganized Microsoft from seven business units to three: Windows, Office, and XBox. Big changes. Huge in fact.

This week my wife was at the elementary school our children attend for an after-school meeting. Another parent had brought a DVD of a competitive student performance from last year to share. Turns out, no one at the entire school has a DVD player. No one. Not even in the library. Not even a computer with a DVD player.

I found the latter situation quite remarkable, but also quite telling. Contrast that to today’s announcement from Microsoft. The speed and agility with which actors in the business market can and do reorient themselves to the changed conditions of our culture is staggering, especially when you look at our schools.

I will be the first person to point out that business models are not always applicable to school contexts. If you have not already, please read Dr. Larry Cuban’s book “Oversold and Underused” to get an excellent and well documented perspective on this opinion.

But schools NEED to change, and having DVD players available for teachers and students to use when they want/need them should be a relatively minor thing. I have been working in higher education now for 4 years. Eye opening to see where at least some of our schools are, with regard to available technologies.

On this day..

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 at 11:44 pm and is filed under economics, edtech, literacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.