Several pilots around the country involving tens of thousands of students point strongly to a solution for education that is fiscally possible and could catapult this nation back into the forefront of innovation and education. It also presents a major opportunity for local American businesses to get involved in their communities, expand their revenues, increase their profits and boost employee productivity.
On-line education is being tested in several states with some interesting and very positive results. Criticism seems to come mostly on ideological grounds. But the home-schoolers already know that our education system as it stands is broken. Now comes a high tech solution to a low tech problem — parent – child involvement and bonding.
This is a possible way of sidestepping the high cost of renewing parts of our infrastructure while at the same time leaping ahead of where we currently stand in education, relative to our own past and relative to other countries. U.S. HIstory points to several seminal turns like this and I suspect that this is going to catch on BIG time.
Older facilities can be retrofitted cheaply to accommodate occasional classes and extracurricular activities, sports and social events while most of the schooling is done on line. Under the right direction, if the child is doing well, then the system is working. If the child is not doing well, tutoring can be offered at some local facility.
This leads to an interesting phenomenon. Only parents whose children are NOT doing well will suffer the inconvenience of taking their child for tutoring.
For the first time, parents whose approach is based upon their own satisfaction and convenience and laziness, would have an active reason to make certain that the child is learning their lessons well at home. This in turn could lead to more parent-child interaction and thus the ultimate high tech solution to a low-tech problem — parent-child involvement and bonding.
The financial savings would easily cover the re-introduction of arts, physical fitness, and all the things we were accustomed to seeing at school a few decades ago.
It could also lead to high productivity of students, enhanced by greater knowledge, more highly developed analytical skills, more nourished creative impulses, and more rounded and complete understanding of world history, geography, culture, arts, sciences and of course the basics of science, math and communication.
In turn, this means that baby boomers, like myself, would have a better chance of getting treated by a physician who is better trained and educated when we really need it, if we are still around, in 20-30 years. And it means that our children and grandchildren stand a much better chance in a highly competitive world to create entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves and get jobs that offer better lives than the generation before them.
And here is a tip for the marketing savvy geniuses. If you assume that this IS going to catch on, you have a huge marketing channel for many services and products. So for example, community banks and credit unions who offer on-line banking could include tutorials on basic personal finance and let students manage virtual bank accounts. Hardware and software providers would have easy access into each of the homes of the students if they offered basic systems to the schools for nothing or next to nothing. Companies wishing to make a name for themselves and ingratiate themselves with a community could make donations that they know will result in better candidates for employment.
Filed under: bubble, Bush, community banks, credit unions, education, inflation, Investor, marketing, Obama, politics, Uncategorized | Tagged: bank, credit union, education, marketing, online, public finance, schools, social benefits, teaching |
Contribute to the discussion!