DeVos and Disruption

Harvard Biz School Prof Clay Christensen is the daddy of disruption theory.  He has postulated that online learning is the cheap technology that will disrupt higher education by lowering the cost of entry, just as Amazon has disrupted the retail world.  So far the impact of the internet has been less than Christensen predicted... though not insignificant.

Billionaire Betsy DeVos poses a different sort of disruption threat to education, as her testimony before the Senate yesterday illustrated.  At the K-12 level she wants to do for America what she did for Michigan: divert public funds from public schools to charter schools and school vouchers.  That may be good for the kids who get to use those private alternatives.  But it's a disaster for public schools already hard pressed for funding, who become the dumping grounds for the kids who can't take advantage of the alternatives.  Left with the least capable kids, public schools fail, leading the DeVoses of the world saying, "See, told you so."

As for higher ed, one quote should suffice: "“For too long a college degree has been pushed as the only avenue for a better life. The old and expensive brick-mortar-and-ivy model is not the only one that will lead to a prosperous future.”

Turning to the for-profit sector of higher ed, Senator Elizabeth Warren commented, ""Swindlers and crooks are out there doing back flips.  If confirmed, you will be the cop on the beat and if you can’t enforce the existing rules then you shouldn’t be secretary of education."

DeVos --- surprise, surprise --- would say only that she will study the situation.  In fairness, she probably knows very little about it.  It wasn't her thing in Michigan.  But, like Sen. Warren, I picture some backflips being performed by the likes of Apollo Group, corporate parent of the flagging University if Phoenix, as well as all those other for-profit schools that had their accreditor taken from them in December by the DOE.

Disruption will likely be the order of the day and Betsy DeVos will be a force with which we college administrators must recon.