Ask HN: Why is there so little innovation in education?

Education sales combines all the wonderful fun of multi-year Big Freaking Enterprise consultative sales cycles with the vast untapped budget of your local pizza shop. Your product, if it is going to be effective, is virtually certain to threaten the continued employment of a stakeholder who has veto authority over deploying it. Educational institutions and educators are not rewarded for doing education well -- indeed, if they have greater than minimal competency, improving just gets their budgets cut.

Better content and teachers have greater leverage than technology in education. The perfect example is Khan Academy, who are only now building applications for exercises based on their stellar content. If a startup did want to help, it could help great teachers leverage and amplify the power of existing tools to create and spread good content.

A few startups are trying to use games as a new way of teaching. There are lots of language learning sites, which are using peer-to-peer tools, but they seem more interested in plastering their sites with ads than actually educating people.

Steven Jobs says:

"I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.

It's a political problem. The problems are sociopolitical. The problems are unions. You plot the growth of the NEA [National Education Association] and the dropping of SAT scores, and they're inversely proportional. The problems are unions in the schools. The problem is bureaucracy. I'm one of these people who believes the best thing we could ever do is go to the full voucher system.

I have a 17-year-old daughter who went to a private school for a few years before high school. This private school is the best school I've seen in my life. It was judged one of the 100 best schools in America. It was phenomenal. The tuition was $5,500 a year, which is a lot of money for most parents. But the teachers were paid less than public school teachers - so it's not about money at the teacher level. I asked the state treasurer that year what California pays on average to send kids to school, and I believe it was $4,400. While there are not many parents who could come up with $5,500 a year, there are many who could come up with $1,000 a year.

If we gave vouchers to parents for $4,400 a year, schools would be starting right and left. People would get out of college and say, "Let's start a school." You could have a track at Stanford within the MBA program on how to be the businessperson of a school. And that MBA would get together with somebody else, and they'd start schools. And you'd have these young, idealistic people starting schools, working for pennies.

They'd do it because they'd be able to set the curriculum. When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don't learn until you're older - yet you could learn them when you're younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

God, how exciting that could be! But you can't do it today. You'd be crazy to work in a school today. You don't get to do what you want. You don't get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn't it. You're not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school - none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.

It's not as simple as you think when you're in your 20s - that technology's going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won't." [1]

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[1]: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs_pr.html

Having two young children I would love to see something happen in this space. Currently I have my children in a private school on the basis that its "the best I can do for them now" - ie small class sizes, larger resources than a normal school. Whilst this is working out 'ok' I do feel that the idea of teaching children in a traditional manner - ie knowledge transfer from a person at the front - is wasteful. Outside of school I try to get them to solve problems by discovering their own solutions. I've looked at home schooling, but they would lose the social aspect. Its an area I'm just starting to explore, to find "a better way" so would welcome any comments, ideas, sites etc that people know of for an alternative way to traditional schooling. I do understand this is slightly different to the topic that has been started, but it still fits within the same area - that of innovation

Moodle is another interesting option. I know a few schools that are using it, and it certainly has some fan support:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUrhl974wSE

(I recognize it's not a massively innovative product compared to Blackboard, but I do prefer it. It's a step in the right direction.)

I've used at least 2 VLEs but I have to say that I still rather use Yahoo Groups or the best one would be Google Wave... But, yeah, I totally agree that the environments available nowadays doesn't show any evolution. I think that's a reflection of the institutions (universities, in general) they are linked with. Both the education and the working processes have to undergo huge transformation/evolution (theoretically it should have started by education, but I can't see it happening). We still pretty much have been going to school more or less the same for the past 700 years. If we want to be in the 21st century, we must move on from the 13th.

Fred Wilson was asked this same question on his interview yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2009662

He answers this on minute 30 of the interview. And mentions he'd just made his few pure Education investment.

I'm working on a project now that will aggregate self-motivated learning online. Watch a lecture on YouTube? (Many universities post them). Get credit for it. Start a discussion with others who also watched it. Ask and answer questions. Find like-minded people and learn with each other, set your own challenges and goals.

That's only half of it, but the core idea is this: We learn online already. Pave the cowpaths. Give people credit for what they already do.

I'm also looking for a co-founder. Anyone interested in this project (suggestions, more info, etc.), I'd love to chat: http://scr.im/michaelhart

I have been working on two projects targeting university niche and after months these are my observations. Universities are managed like kingdoms, not republics. The deans and professors have absolute power, students do not get a say. Even if students could rise their voices they prefer not to rise their voice as their degree (and parents' money) are on the line. Professors and deans like to keep things run the old way, everything with pen on paper. The less technology involved the more they enjoy their life. (I think this is because these guys are mainly 50+ and those types do not like to scratch things they've known for 30 years and learn new technological stuff) Technology makes things more transparent and more data available to people that university thinks should not be. I think technological innovation will start to boost in universities in like 20 years when students of my age who enjoys technology in every bit of their life become professors and deans, etc.

I've been homeschooled, and have taken online classes. With the internet, from Wikipedia to small websites on a certain topic, the internet has made research and homeschooling much easier. Yes, I still did use textbooks and read, but the internet itself has been a great learning environment to pursue at your own pace. Some of the learning management software I've used improved over time. Often, most of the learning management software was Moodle with a wimba classroom. The wimba classroom was not quite so good, but Moodle (despite being spotty at times) worked well for its purpose. With the Pearson network, they're running a custom system that technologically is different (webobjects and asp), however it isn't too distracting to show flash presentations, submit assignments for grading, run discussions, etc. If someone comes along and makes a great OSS or SAS solution for a learning management system there is certainly room to improve. The difference between my experience is the cost is a concern to those using these programs so they try to find the best and lowest cost solution.

http://www.khanacademy.org/ (no affiliation)

It's interesting you should bring this up, because I've thought a few times about trying to start an Education-based company after I graduate - it's something I'm both interested in and passionate about (several family members are teachers and headteachers, I've worked as an EFL teacher twice).

One thing that puts me off is what patio11 mentions - selling to schools and universities would be difficult and it's unclear whether they actually want it. OTOH, it does seem like a lot of individuals in education are interested in the potential of e-learning (to give their institution a USP if nothing else), though I've been uninspired by a lot of the examples of it I've seen in practice.

One area which does see a lot of fashionable, Techcrunch-y startups is language learning - off the top of my head I can name Busuu, italki, and Voxswap which are language-learning social networks, ChinesePod and Skritter which are targeted at Mandarin learners, and Smart.fm and YC-funded Lingt which offer online flashcards. These, of course, are more aimed at individuals, suggesting that it's something much easier to target.

"Disrupting Education" is an interesting read; the author's thesis is that e-learning is a 'disruptive innovation', that will first find success in niche areas where traditional education cannot reach (for example, providing high school students courses like Arabic, which are difficult to find teachers for). There it will gain momentum until it begins to displace more traditional education (though he holds that it will empower human teachers, not replace them).

We're still in the process of figuring out how to extend education universally. This is a relatively new idea, and as such has required more than 100 years to get right. Also, as a country (US), it seems we have yet to decide if its really worth the cost.

My wife is a teacher so I speak with some 2nd hand experience here.

[tl;dr: 1) Innovation does happen, it just doesn't always involve technology or computers. 2) The system punishes those who innovate.]

Rant 1:

She is constantly innovating in her classroom. She is always looking for new and better ways to capture students attention and inspire them.

She is head of the department and is also innovating within her department. She works together with her team (currently 3 including herself) and often runs things like joint lessons so experience and best practises can be shared amongst the team.

However, she is not a techie so her innovations are in teaching styles, delivery, activities, content and management and not technology. I think sometimes as techies we can be quite arrogant in assuming that innovation must always involve technology.

Rant 2:

But the biggest problem in teaching is the system. The focus of the system is so heavily centred around grades that sometimes they forget we are dealing with children. The system encourages uninnovative parrot style education and memorisation of past papers so the pupils can reel off a bunch of model answers to keep the numbers looking good. So those who innovate are often rewarded with poorer grades because the exams focus on blind memorisation with no thought.

So much is expected of individual teachers that those who want to innovate don't have the time. She currently starts work at 7.45 when I drop her at school. She leaves at 5.30 when I collect her. She does an additional 2-3 hours most evenings and 3-6 hours on a Sunday. She works around 70% of the time in every halfterm/holiday break with the exception of the summer when we try to get a solid 2 weeks away somewhere. Add on the frequent parents evenings, open days and after school events.

The goal posts are frequently changed at both a governmental level, a local authority level and at an individual school level (sometimes conflicting). Deadlines are frequently imposed or changed with little or no warning. Unlike in my industry where if a request is made someone must choose to drop some existing work to fit it in, they are frequently expected to meet additional requirements without any reduction elsewhere.

She has been a teacher for 5 years and so far the syllabus in her subject has changed every single year. This means every year time is wasted re-writing schemes of work to fit a new syllabus, re-writing mock exams, re-writing resources and lesson plans. Some churn is obviously good to continuously improve, but when the required churn is so high there is no time to make improvements.

Lets add to this the constant pressure of demanding parents who see (or hear about) every innovation, and any that doesn't fit their own personal mantra for education they complain (and too much power is given to parents who complain). It's like having an additional 30 pairs of bosses per project each with their own totally different opinions on how their child should be educated (and they all seem to think they are experts and their children are angels).

Teaching breaks the spirit of even the most passionate rather than rewarding those who are innovating it crushes them under a mountain of work and unrealistic expectations.

It's the system that has to change first to reward the right kinds of behaviour. Every successive government seems to think they are the experts on education and their changes are forced through so quickly little time or consideration is given to implementation or if they will actually work.

[UK based btw]

A friend of mine started http://hootcourse.com/ which attempts to integrate the communication tools students are using with their courses.

The instructors and students using it thus far seem to enjoy it. Though it's not a replacement for products like Blackboard since it's not really a repository for content, it does replace their poor communication tools well.

There is innovation: khanacademy.com

I think you underestimate the innovation in education considering Kahn Academy, the UN, MIT courseware online, etc. The innovation is in content and a more student-centric approach to learning.

The old model of a school building and a teacher "push the content" has changed little since 1800 despite the advances in technology. Just relax the assumption that there has to be a physical school and the innovation opportunities become apparent. More thoughts at http://sophisticatedfinance.typepad.com/sophisticated_financ...

Ah, education... this is one of my big bugbears, and it's a really big one, so bear with me :) The issue is multi-faceted:

* Stifled curriculum; Here in the UK the curriculum is pretty shoddy. My mother is a primary teacher and trying to innovate her teaching is extremely difficult - the curriculum simply cannot cope. It is unwieldy and disjointed, and almost without exception tech innovators do not understand how it works and how to accomodate it (n.b. this is not simply a tech problem, my dad runs a successful mobile planetarium business and, through my mother, knows how to accomodate what is needed - their competitors pop up every few months and quickly flounder because school level education is unlike any other learning ever conceived :)).

* Teacher apathy; not all of them, but enough. They follow the worksheets and guidelines and don't "disrupt" the system enough to make a serious change. You'll get a few great ones in each school (I'm sure we all have some memorable/fav teachers) but most are simply either bad or good teachers, and not innovators.

* Teacher luddites; even the very best teachers can be luddites (meant in a polite sense). Getting them to accept and use new tech is hard enough, but when the teachers often have no IT skills (this is a problem that will be fixed in a few generations, I guess) themselves there is simply no chance :)

* Teaching unions; don't give a crap about education (partly understandable), and exercise their power to interfere a little too much.

* Bureaucracy; you honestly have never experienced bureaucracy until you have ever tried to do anything in a school. This varies greatly, and can exist as stupid rules through to silly government policy (the one at the moment is that my mum has to "evidence" and present all the work her kids do during the year... I guess to prove they aren't just playing with lego all day???)

* Funding; there is none. Most good teachers (esp. primary teachers) will fund a lot of the non-curriculum ideas they have (such as, science clubs) as there is no money. And when there is it is spent shoddily. For example; mums school have digital whiteboards and laptops for all the teachers to hook up. In the last three years they have had three suppliers (all council approved contracts..) - all of who have fucked up in various ways and been replaced. Most of the whiteboards fail at some point (v. poor quality), the laptops are slow, clunky and a mess. They can never get anything done (Mum has a pile of CDs/DVDs with educational programs that she can't "ta da" install on the laptop to test....)

tl;dr: education is a mess because previous good education has tried and failed (dismally) to adopt modern ideas and adapt to modern society. There is no money, innovation or interest in educating our children.

(n.b. not all teachers are at fault. In fact; a large number will raise these exact issues if you ask them, but are completely stumped as to how to fix and disrupt it. Innovation is desperately needed - but be prepared for a long long slog :))

The most unpleasant fact about the education business is what to do with the not so bright kids and how to keep them from holding back the bright kids. (Yes I know, all children are above average and are fully capable of absolutely anything if they just try)

I noticed this recently, developed a concept that I thought might be a good substitute for some prolific higher ed software and pitched it. The result: "Great idea! But we've got no funding? We'd love to use it though... maybe you could sell it to our current vendor and they could bundle it in? We definitely couldn't afford to pay for it ourselves though."

I worked for a year as a software developer at a company that made educational products. In many ways it was a good company, but I was frustrated by what I considered substandard quality in their software products. It wasn't that they didn't care at all about quality, but the nature of the education market tended to encourage us to cut corners on quality.

Most educational software is used by students and teachers, but purchased by administrators. The administrators making the buying decisions compare competing products according to price and feature lists. Therefore, we were encouraged to match and exceed the feature count of the competition in order to get sales. If the new features introduced a few bugs or made the user interface awkward, that was less of a problem than not getting the features out in time for the academic year buying cycle. The buyers might never use the product enough to experience the problems. Other commercial software developers have similar struggles with the balance of more features, meeting market windows, and maintaining good design and quality. However, I believe this problem is exacerbated in the educational market by the gulf that separates those who buy from those who use the software.

There's a couple Chicago guys trying to make a BlackBoard competitor - no idea how far along they are. Hope they chime in. Sounded like an interesting project.

There are people like Dr. Sugata Mitra, who after decade of experiments brought this innovative concept of 'SOLE' (Self Organized Learning Environment) ... this can change the world of illiteracy & poverty with little bit help of philanthropy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...