~synthesis~

hammers and nails

There's this saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It makes sense, doesn't it? If you ask a neurosurgeon what's wrong with you, chances are he'll point to a problem with your brain, but a heart specialist would call out something to do with your circulatory system, etc.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a group of people who met to try and figure out what could be done to increase STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) graduates in America. But the only people in the room were nerds! If you're trying to attract other people to your party, shouldn't you invite some of them to the room to at least explain why they're avoiding you in the first place? But no - that room felt it was an engineering problem - let's keep it just us nerds - hah!

We all approach the world based on our context, but that's not always the best way to actually solve problems.

Today NPR reported on a "war" status update by General McChrystal (senior US/NATO military officer in Afghanistan). We've already been there 8 years; during that time, the enemy has grown in strength despite not having any armored vehicles, aircraft, or advanced communications and weaponry. According to McChrystal, their opponents are using prisons (prisons!) to recruit and train future soldiers! The terrorists are actually using jails paid for by their enemies to house and train future militants.

McChrystal is quoted as saying: "Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it." My interpretation: "we have no strategy, so let's stay the course, throw more resources at the problem, and see if that helps." But it's not his fault - he's military - his context is clear, and his approach predictable.

So let's talk strategy. First, you declare war on sovereign nations, not people, and certainly not terrorists. Terrorists are mere criminals; by elevating them to the stature of a sovereign nation (declaring "war"), you give them strength, credibility and righteousness. The police, not soldiers deal with criminals - they're designed to keep the peace and bring criminals to justice. They should lead this effort.

History has shown that occupying a country in the interests of peace and freedom are not only oxymoronic but also futile. Sustained peace and freedom can only come from within.

Mr. President - isn't it time to find another tool?

RIP guiding light

Nope - this is not about the TV show. Seth Godin wrote a post about making lists in business that prioritizes your goals in order to help you hone in on what's really important.

Building that list is not easy, and prioritizing it is even harder. In sales, if you had XXX additional resources (time, money, people, whatever), do you spend it on improving customer service to create lifelong customers; up-selling existing customers to grow revenue per customer; or as Seth put it, try to win game-changing deals? What's the right choice? This is why leaders get paid the big bucks.

Before Dell entered the computer business, what did the other manufacturers think about and prioritize? In all likelihood, the Compaqs, HPs, and IBMs of the world focused things like Six Sigma for process improvement. I'm willing to bet none said - "our customers deserve to get made-to-order vs. our generic models, let's rethink this." I bet there was even argument about offering a different colors or specs due to their impact on metrics, quality, cycle times, and throughput.

Why does it happen? Size matters - my theory: the farther away you get from the real intention of the organization, the less likely you are to contribute to it. It's true at the top, middle and bottom.

At the bottom, you're too close to the action and have to focus on your context and what you can control. At the top you're too far away; whatever insight you get is colored and filtered by your minions' interpretations; and worse, it's also shaped by your entrenchments - your past successes constrain your future opportunities. I'm convinced the latter is one of the greatest causes of decline in successful corporations. The middle is caught - they're too far away from the trenches to viscerally know what's going on, and too far away from top to really understand where the company's headed.

Let's face it in the business world, you don't succeed by raising your hand and asking the director "what is my motivation in this scene?" So what do you do? You control what you can, in the hopes that executing well in your microcosm will have positive effects on the world outside you. This might work in some instances, but it's not predictable, and you have to overcome the organization's natural (almost entropic) tendency to girth, which requires the ability and willingness to fight human nature.

When your small world becomes the whole world, you don't see context properly - motivation becomes about self-preservation and self-elevation vs. overall organizational success. You can be and feel righteous about your vision in your small world, you don't know if that micro-view really helps. As with the people on the factory floor at Compaq or HP or IBM, until someone (Dell) hits you on the head with it, you're mired.

Many parents in America know that they can't afford to send their children to university. Beth Breselli wrote an article yesterday at Rethinking Higher Education about Financial Aid Reform. In it she questions whether recent legislation aimed at making all student aid public will succeed or not. One of the benefits Beth cites is a simpler application form. But if we were really interested in this problem, why fix the process at all? The only reason to focus on this is because we're mired in the micro at the expense of the macro.

The problem is not who lends, who qualifies, or how the forms get filled out. The goal is to ensure every student who can attend university does so irrespective of financial situation. The easiest way to do this is to make university free (in Finland it is not just free, you actually get a stipend for being there). Assuming that's not possible (or at least the topic of another blog:-)), then start at the beginning of the process. when do parents (and students) eliminate university from consideration due to economics? I have no data to back this up, but I bet they explicitly do this during the freshman year of high school, and tacitly do it long before.

If I ran the government, I'd make it simple - once you declare your child as a dependent on your tax return, the IRS does an evaluation of your financial situation and tells you that your child(ren) are pre-qualified for financial assistance for university. There are no forms to fill out, here are the amounts and limits, don't worry - you're good - once the university accepts your child, we will automatically pay the amount based on their social security number. Every year, they update your status based on your current financial situation, if all other things are equal, you're still good. I bet many more parents would encourage their children, pay more attention to school, etc., and in the end, with minimal effort on either side, we achieve the goal and eliminate complexity, bureaucracy and cost.

Peter Drucker is in my opinion the single definitive voice in modern business thinking. I had a chance many years ago to spend some 1:1 time with him - it was the single greatest moment of my professional life. Our conversation was wonderful, wide-ranging, provocative and inspiring. This quote to the right should be the first and last words read at every meeting, planning session, review, etc. in the business world. We talked about this at length over lunch that day - business leaders need to understand the difference between management and leadership. Leadership is about subverting the natural tendency towards organizational entropy by making sure the list is correct and properly prioritized. Management is implementation.

Our guiding lights are waning. Why are most of our leaders now merely managers?

inversions

There was an article in the NY Times recently about a research study that found that students who study online outperform those that study in the classroom. But according to an email Prof. Kathy Gill at U Washington sent to a listserv, the causative factor was not on/off line, but time on task

So it wasn't the medium, it wasn't the message, it was the participation level that made the difference. It makes sense doesn't it? You could be in the most beautiful place with the most beautiful people looking at the most beautiful things, but if you weren't engaged, it was all for naught.

One thing this study does show is that listening to lectures online does work - students can and do pay attention; insight is conveyed, and gained.

Have you heard of Professor Glenn Platt at Miami University? He along with Prof. Maureen Lage invented the concept of "The Inverted Classroom." This is Einstein-like (so simple and yet no-one's ever thought of it before) brilliance.

From the students' point of view (and let's face it, they're the customers!), the lecture is the least interactive part of a learning experience; the assignments/homework are the most interactive.

So why not flip things around and make the lectures homework, and the assignments class work? The teachers should actively facilitate the interactive experience, and expect the students to "attend" the static part out of class.

The lecture is information with some insight (students sit, listen, take notes). The homework and assignments are where you're meant to internalize the concepts, be able to extend them to related areas, and demonstrate your knowledge by submitting solutions to problems you've been assigned (student reviews, infers, works, and documents understanding).

Think back to when you were doing homework - did you collaborate with your peers to solve a particularly difficult problem? If so, you had to arrange for an "out of class" meeting, to connect and then brainstorm, argue, share, and hopefully solve. There are many studies that show that the best way to know is to teach - getting together with your mates was the first step in teaching (or co-teaching), and understanding.

Platt/Lage published this idea nine years ago (in 2000) - shocking that this hasn't been more broadly explored.

Why hasn't it taken hold? IMO - there are three reasons for this:

1. Ability to record and disseminate lectures - requires video recording tools, a portal with video streaming services, the disk space and bandwidth to assure a good experience. This is being done in many places today - my traditional favorite is MIT Open Courseware, but Curtis Wong at Microsoft Research has created a rather ground-breaking project called Tuva - well worth a visit, especially if you share my appreciation for Richard Feynman. I don't think this is as expensive as everyone makes it out to be. Plus there are many organizations that would happily lend assistance to school systems that wished to implement this.
2. Capacity for all students to receive and consume lectures at home - this is more contentious. Throwing out the trust issue (kids won't do the work), which I believe is spurious and can be overcome, this is also the expensive part. Every student will require their own device to access lectures (could be as simple as a mobile phone), and the bandwidth to download them. Again - this is not a complex problem, but merely a costly one. I've talked about an adult equivalent of this here, I think the opportunity and impact is even greater for children.
3. Incumbents' willingness to change - there are four players involved (besides the students) and each is a big hairy issue. Are teachers and administrators willing to change? Are their unions open to encouraging this type of approach? Will parents (voters) agree to this idea? Does anyone have the cojones to pilot this for a whole school system?

Does it affect pedagogy? Yes. Does it require a new set of teaching skills? Hopefully not - my presumption is that teachers sought this scenario when they chose the profession. Does curriculum need to change? It could - for example, rather than streaming full 50-minute lectures, try ~10 minute "lecturelets" that are aggregated into lessons. One advantage of the inverted model is that the teacher and the lecturer don't have to be the same person. If your state had a standard curriculum, you could record the 4-5 best lecturers in your state, and then have that "best of the best" set of lectures be your streaming library; this library could be updated every two or three years to keep it fresh. The in-class teachers' role becomes more guide on the side.

The other advantage of this lecture/lecturelet model is that students can replay them to clarify understanding and review prior to exams. It allows them to learn in a much more self-directed way.

The issue with this model - will all students actually watch the lectures? No. But how is this different from today? I have observed a number of primary and secondary school classes, and can say with certainty that despite physically being in the room, not every student was really in the room. Moreover, not every student actually did their homework. Bet you're surprised to read that!

One other thing - when surveyed most teachers say that keeping students engaged while in the class is difficult. That doesn't surprise me given that most of the time is spent lecturing. This approach changes that - it puts the teacher in the role of actually working with the students to together internalize, understand and demonstrate the material. And I bet engaged students are more likely to watch lectures at home too.

I would change the approach to assignments - it's not about kids being head's down, answering questions, but rather about a discussion with problem solving, team exercises, lab work, etc. I'm not sure if assessments would need to change (they might), but I think the grading breakdown should - class participation and activity must now be at least 50% of the student's grade.

The data shows that time-on-task helps performance, that it is possible to learn from steaming lectures, and that keeping students engaged is a challenge for teachers. Inverted classrooms could be an answer.

I would really like to see a sizable school district or maybe a whole State give inverted classrooms a try. I think it has incredible potential, and might actually transform learning in a way we've never seen before. Perhaps this is what President Obama and Secretary Duncan should provoke with their Race to the Top program.

the lombardi curse

A very good friend sent me this awesome map yesterday. If perception is reality, this is a pretty telling barometer of how the rest of the world perceives the United States (my friend is from Johannesburg). My reply to him was - "this seems complicated, I would think most Americans would just have a map that read "us" and "them," and go: 'see - U.S.!!!'"

This also got me to reflecting on politics inside America. The recent healthcare debate is but one of the many aspects of this country that make me go "hmmm..." It feels like Americans have an obsession - that has to do with Vince Lombardi's words - "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."

Patriotism for Americans has to do with standing up for the country, but it is grossly colored by politics. When George W. Bush was president, the Democrats were opposed almost everything done in the name of America - they argued passionately and violently against their duly elected leader's actions and behaviors (even debating the legality of his election) - they wanted him out, and wished to denounce any connection they might have with him. (When President Bush was elected to a second term, I (I'm Canadian) got eight marriage proposals from female Democrats who wanted to escape their country!) The did all this in the name of patriotism!

Now that there is a Democrat in the White House, the Republicans are doing everything in their power to subvert him, to create as strong (ideally stronger) an uprising against him as there was against their standard-bearer (including questioning his citizenship). Like the Democrats before them, they actively denounce the sitting president's every action in the name of patriotism.

Even the winning side in an election seems to want to step on the vanquished, this despite the lip service on "bi-partisanship" or "working across the aisle" or "coming together."

We've had many a debate in this blog about leadership in America, including things like the formation of a third party or creating a singular government (vs. local, state, federal), or federalizing education. It's been a fantastic discussion, with many diverse points of view, so I'm certainly not saying everyone is politically polarized.

Healthcare and a speech to students have been top of mind lately. But why isn't the issue: we want a healthier nation - and we don't care who the author is, we just want what's best for our citizens? Is it even possible that a President of America would go on TV to brainwash students? How can people be that naive? I bet the children can see through more crap than the adults in this country.

Vince Lombardi was trying to inspire the athletes he coached to always focus on the outcome. In sport, the outcome is more easily determined and much more clear than in life. To trivialize something as complex as the United States of America into this simple an outcome is frightening, and yet this is where we are.

The goal of leadership is not merely to win (that's too easy, and too fleeting) - the goal of leadership is greatness. That is what our leaders and citizens should be aiming for. Greatness has many aspects - here are three that I think are important - integrity, elevation and longevity.

• Integrity requires us to do what is right, we must seek and accept accountability, we must be judged by that most powerful of forces - the reflection of our eyes in the mirror.
• Elevation is about improvement. We must continually be the best we can be, and bring everyone ... everyone with us.
• Longevity is about foundations that don't crumble when shaken, it is a test of time spanning generations.

If America is the "leader of the free world" then should it not be leading the world to a better place? Rather than putting all our energy into beating down a fellow American, why not put all our energy into making America (and the world) great?

If I had written President Obama's speech to Congress last week, I would not have called out the nay-sayers as he did - why strengthen resistance? Instead, here's how I might have begun his speech:

I've only been President for eight months, but with every speech I've delivered as President, there have been three reactions - first, from those that agree with me calling it brilliant, ground-breaking and visionary; second, from those that don't calling it a travesty to basic American values, a fool's errand that undermines our very essence as a sovereign nation; and finally, from those that calmly look at the substance and wish to constructively debate it because the premise makes sense, and let's get to the next step of creating the best outcome. It is to this last group that I address this speech.

My goal is a healthier, safer and better-educated America.

The government (be it local, state or federal) is expected to ensure the safety and security of Americans and America. No-one is saying that safety should only go to those who can pay for it, nor is anyone saying we should not spend the taxpayers' dollars on defense. Our government is also entrusted with intellectual upbringing of our children. Every child is entitled to a free education until the age of 18 (I would argue - "why stop at 18?" but that's for another day). No-one is saying that we should close public schools and convert to a fully private system where education goes only to those that can afford it. The outcomes of "safe" and "better-educated" are critical to our future as a nation, and the government must do its part - we all agree on that. In fact, we all expect it.

But a strong and well-defended America isn't just about soldiers and weapons, or diplomacy, or trade and economic policy, it's about that one person with H1N1 (swine flu) who was on an airplane and infected the rest of the flight, and then everyone with whom they came into contact. That is a national and personal security threat - why?

Because that individual could be anyone, whether they had health insurance or not; today's health problems aren't all self-contained - they're not all just about your personal health. You and I are as subject to the people with whom we share the air we breathe as we are to our own genetic makeup. Healthcare is not just about you the individual, it is about you and everyone around you, friends and strangers alike.

We must apply the same vigor and focus to protecting our country from the threat of pandemics that President Bush demonstrated after September 11, 2001 when confronted with another threat to America.

The healthier Americans are, the less likely we are to succumb not just to H1N1 or SARS or Avian Flu, but also cancer and heart disease and diabetes. These last three are not mere threats, they are diabolical killers; they have taken more American lives than any other cause in history. This year alone, X [insert correct number] hundred thousand citizens will be killed by these three diseases. This year we will spend $XXX billion in public and private treatment for those afflicted with these diseases, and this year our economy will lose $XXX billion due to lost work hours from these three diseases. If that's not a threat to the essence of America, I don't know what is.

My fellow Americans - my premise once again is a healthier, safer and better-educated America. I don't have all the answers, I have the beginnings of a plan, but am hoping that those among you who agree with this premise can work with me to help create a healthcare system for our country that results in every American being healthier and more resilient to the diseases above and many, many others.

Whatever our approach, it can't be one of compromise. We should never compromise our health, safety or education - they are too important. But by working together and using good old American ingenuity, we can and will find an answer that is right for America. My only requirement is that the plan be ready before the end of 2009, and that it be fully-implemented before 2015.

OK - the President's speech writer would do a much better job of writing this, but if he is able to convey the point that healthcare is no different from education or national security, and that there should be a national mandate for every American to be as healthy as possible, it goes a long way, and hopefully places the obsession on the outcome (healthier people) and not partisanship, or winning and losing.

commodity U

In the words of Wayne Gretzky the best hockey player ever, "a good player skates to where the puck is, a great player skates to where the puck will be."

Reading Seth Godin's recent post about abundance and scarcity, there is no doubt that winning is about altering the model, redefining the game so that it favors your "home-field advantage" vs. anyone else's. History is littered with examples of things that were once special, expensive and sought after, but are now commodity. From air travel to televisions to mobile phones to personal computers, value diminishes as innovation takes over or as Seth put it, we move from scarcity to abundance.

The mark of a great organization is its ability to anticipate the next disruption (where the puck will be) and either be the authors of it, or redesign to obviate a competitive threat altogether. Organizations that sustain preeminence do so because they understand that being entrenched in their past successes is the surest path to future failure. It's not easy; they face phrases like "old school" or "back in the old days" or "we've done it that way forever" and have to overcome that tendency to stay in the past where it's comfortable.

The communication revolution has felled many seemingly iconic "incumbent" organizations and even entire industries. Perhaps they failed to grasp the implications of the democratization of publish, access, and more critically, connect. Sadly, some also fail to realize that the "hold" they might have on a market is wavering as the demand for their unique "thing" dissipates.

There is one industry that for the longest time has managed to subvert the forces of change, and stay true to the old ways - higher education. They've historically prioritized faculty over the students or rarely paid attention to teaching quality (how many professors did you have that had any training or any skill as teachers?). As long as they were the accreditation gatekeeper, and were able to attract funding from public and private sources, the students were secondary, if not tertiary (sorry). The recent economic times have changed things - most universities are now realizing that student "satisfaction" is critical, but only because their cash flow is now so significantly dependent on undergrad tuition - most of the other sources are diminishing.

But this isn't all, conventional universities are facing competition from three other sources:

1. Just like universities complain that high school students aren't prepared when they graduate, employers must also train graduates before they're ready to contribute - they don't all hit the ground running. Sure they want a trained candidate, but one who has proven skills delivering business value (not academic value). Candidates' other experiences (work, creative, community, teaming, etc.) are sometimes better indicators of work effectiveness. This puts less pressure on student to have to go to a branded school, and more focus on demonstrating their ability to be a valued employee.
2. Online players like  University of Phoenix or Kaplan University are really traditional educators in a new medium, but they're growing by leaps and bounds. They have a more streamlined economic model than traditional schools (less buildings, more bandwidth). Their professors also have to be better teachers given the online medium. Their diplomas are also respected by employers.
3. Have you ever heard of StraighterLine or P2PU? The former is a $99/month all-you-can-eat lectures to earn college credits, and the latter a community/peer learning facility by subject/class. These two organizations may not succeed right away, but IMO there's a "there" there. Sure it'll take another decade to gain a foothold, but I think StraighterLine or Peer2PeerU or similar entities will be the University of Phoenix of the 2010s.

Adding this up, universities are facing funding shortfalls, skeptical students (customers), disruptive business models, and a product that's been devalued in the marketplace. That sounds very much like they're being commoditized. Nobody believed the University of Phoenix would survive, but it has thrived - so much so that others (Kaplan) are copying its model. You even have institutions like Florida Virtual School, which is a very successful Kindergarten-Gr12 school. Once again we see scarcity shifting to abundance; those that try and hold on to the old ways may well be doomed, and those that adapt will survive.

I think this is a good thing; competitive spirits will surface, academia will raise it's head to try and figure out where the puck is going, and everyone (especially the students) will benefit.

is free free?

How do you make money and still sell things for free?? Inquiring minds want to know!

I'm fascinated by these business models - one approach is to lower the price and make it up in volume (examples include SouthWest Airlines, Walmart, Costco, etc.). Google zeroed the price altogether by turning the end user into the product and the advertiser into the customer - this was the first real step towards free at scale. Now free is expected, and if you're not ad-funded, it makes it hard to turn a profit... or does it?

Seth Godin wrote about righteous indignation and avalanche opportunities this week, and Krishna asked sure free is for users, but what about publishers? All three blogs apply to business models, how you can optimize your opportunities, create scale (which requires very broad reach), and make money.

While Seth was talking about customer service in the first, I see a different kind of righteousness - "I deserve to get paid, and I'm damned if I let someone take my stuff for free!!" As Krishna argued, it costs money to sell stuff for free; it's easy to understand why people feel indignant about it. Read Seth's second post (avalanche), and you learn that your boss *really* pays attention when you can demonstrate significant reach, outcomes, growth, etc., and you begin to think - the only way for me to break through and get customers to pay attention is to sell it for free.

Do you have to overcome the mentality of expecting to get paid for what you value most? Surely its what the customer values that counts! Not everything has to be for free - people will pay for some things - but what?

If I were an artist you liked and were to offer you my music CD for free, would you begrudge me charging you $4.95 for shipping (even if it only cost $1.25 to ship)??

If I were a chef you liked and offered you appetizers for free provided you bought the main course, would you "buy" (even though you know the main dish prices include the other costs)?

If I were to give you a car for free but charge you $10/gallon for the special fuel it needed, would you "buy" the car (even though you know you'll end up paying for the car in the end)?

Is Free *really* Free?

We all *really* know that deals like this are not truly free, they're just packaging. At the end of the day, any of these organizations needs to earn money in order to pay its employees, cover operating costs, etc. We recognize and respect this because we hopefully do, and want to keep getting paid ourselves.

What about Google? When you happily use their service, you might do so because they're a great company, have a great product and try not to be evil; but have you thought about how economically successful they are? Google employs more than 19,000 employees, earns more than $20 billion/year and achieves more than $4 billion in net profits. These are amazing numbers!

Lots of people had to pay Google cash so that they could be so profitable. These same people had to get paid to be able to afford to pay Google, and you and I (end users) had to have paid them to start this process.

Free isn't free - it's just damned good marketing. Or in Google's case, a brilliant business strategy of turning the customer into the product and selling it to someone else.

Where is the next "avalanche"?? I'm thinking it has something to do with aspects of reCAPTCHA and massively multi-player games. These are both brilliant innovations that are just scratching the surface of new paradigms of commerce.

dropstop

Eli Broad has put a ton of philanthropic energy and money into education; his foundation's site has some interesting statistics:

1. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year, 44% of dropouts under 24 are jobless
2. Dropouts pay less taxes (costing the Feds potential revenue), and 65% of US convicts are dropouts
3. It costs $12,956 more per year to house an inmate ($22,600) than educate a student ($9,644)

Assuming dropouts only spend two years in jail over their adult lives, then each dropout costs the government $45,200 + $? in arrest/court costs + $? in lost tax revenue = $100k (guessing $5,000 in arrest/court + $50k in lost taxes). I think the actual costs are much higher, but let's be conservative and say it's just $100,000 per dropout over their lifetime.

This means every year, the American government (American taxpayer actually) takes on an increased burden of $78 billion dollars just from the 65% of dropouts who will become convicts. Just for the dropouts since the year 2000, this burden over their lives is over $700 billion. To put that in context, the annual operating budget for education is $450 billion, which serves almost 50 million students. [See update below.] I couldn't find the data I wanted, but still believe that the burden on society is significant enough to warrant the investment below. 

Why do students drop out of high school? The three most frequently-cited reasons are: family issues ~25% (pregnancy or becoming a parent), employment ~32% (couldn't combine school and work, or needed to get a job), and motivation ~69% (didn't care, no-one pushed them). How about this: two thirds said that they would have tried harder if more was expected from them (i.e. someone cared).

The National Dropout Prevention Center proposes fifteen strategies for improving graduation rates (about twelve too many); if I were to pick three, besides the obvious ones (centralization and teacher improvement), my third pick would be mentorship, or as I proposed, "minternships."

I recall hearing about a Big Brothers Big Sisters study that said effective mentorship requires a minimum 18 month commitment; less can actually do more harm than good. The quality of the mentor is of course also a critical factor. But if you're good and you stick around, the results are strong and positive - the mentee is more likely to complete and graduate school, etc.

Is there a common thread among the three main reasons kids drop out? They're not being counseled well about family planning, birth control, safe sex, etc.; there are no clear options for financial support for children in high school; there's no-one who believes in them, encourages them, and provides them with a model of how to achieve gainful employment. There doesn't seem to be one, but I think we can create it :-).

Let's build a formalized mentorship program (using the Teach for America concept, we could call it "Reach for Americans") where students are able to receive not just counseling and support, but also a stipend (for community service or internships that pays enough to prevent the need to get a job). The mentorship must focus on both family planning/sex ed and of course motivation, support and inspiration to stay in school, graduate and succeed. Let's not make Reach for Americans (or whatever it'd be called) a .org - let's instead make it a .gov, that way it's not beholden to fund-raising, and students can count on the counselors being there always.

The program should begin early - say at age 8, and continue through high school graduation - this would get expensive (but I bet we'd not only improve graduation rates, but also student performance, and hopefully in a generation be able to claim that families were elevating themselves out of poverty because their children were graduating high school (potentially going on to community college or university), and earning a family wage. This organization might also become a student advocacy group, and argue for student rights across the board, but particularly in low-income communities.

The business case is clear, the outcomes could be significant - I think we should pick a state and give it a try.

UPDATE - I realize (thank you everyone for your emails and comments!) that I made a false assumption above - 65% of criminals are dropouts, not 65% of dropouts are criminals. I will correct this this evening.

outcomes!

Have you noticed that in most big projects you're a part of, success is measured by solving symptoms instead of creating outcomes? Off the top of my head the best example of focusing on outcomes is President Kennedy's proclamation: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."

JFK didn't talk about how it should be done, whether we'd use rockets or levitation, whether we needed bipartisan support, or anything else that reeked of symptoms. The outcome was clear, and while many thought it unattainable in 1961, the nation (and the world) held onto the goal and found a way to make it happen.

Seth Godin's post on positive thinking has a similar feel to it. We all suffer from NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome, our natural reaction to someone else's ides is "why it won't work" vs. "let's give it a try!" This tendency creates barriers to outcomes that can become insurmountable, because for some reason, it's easier for us to believe in "no" than "yes." It's of course much easier to say why it won't work than participate and help create the outcome. Think of every "official opposition" in politics, and even why more candidates argue against their opponent than for their own ideas.

Health care in America is one example of this. Understandably, there is intense debate on this topic - it's complex, rife with vested interests, political rhetoric, and sadly, outright lies. The difference between health care and putting a man on the moon is that the former has been around for ages, affects everyone, and has a direct effect on each of our wallets. The latter had none of those constraints. These are all of course excuses for why we can't fix it...

What if President Obama's inaugural speech had said: "We will have universal health care in America while reducing overall costs before I complete my second term as President." (Note presumptive close on 2nd term;-))

The mandate does not require that we emulate European or Canadian systems, or that we will have a public option, or that we will cut this or increase that, or anything like that. As with JFK's mandate, the "how" is left up to the experts. The only constraints are what (universal health care), when (in 8 years), and how much (less than today).

Is it possible? I think so. What would this uniquely American health care system look like? I have no idea, Would there have to be compromises? Almost certainly. Does this country have a history of rising to the occasion? Yes.

I'm reminded of the scene from (ironically) Apollo 13 - see video to the right - where the NASA team had a problem to solve. The CO2 scrubbers on the ship were damaged. The team of engineers was essentially locked in a room, given exactly what the astronauts in space had at hand, and a deadline. Guess what as in the movie, they solved it in real life too.

Having no expertise in any aspect of health care (other than being a reluctant customer), I may have some ideas, but don't know enough about medications, insurance, HMO vs. private care, the role of physicians, nurses, etc. to respond intelligently. But I think if you put all these stakeholders in a room, lock the door and give them a deadline, we might get somewhere.

If I were in their shoes, I'd start with this: the system today succeeds when more people are sick than when less people are sick. Rather than figure out how to fix health care, why not look at what it takes to create a substantially healthier America??

Resourceful, Fearless, Passionate

Education in America is one of the most maligned institutions around. Everyone believes they have the silver bullet that will fix education once and for all. Off the top of my head and in no particular order, here are ten panaceas (by the way - how can "panacea" have a plural form??):

1. Class size
2. 21st century skills
3. STEM
4. Constructivism
5. Desegregation
6. Standards
7. Instructivism
8. Integrated curriculum
9. 1:1 laptops
10. Increased budgets

The thing Edu-America has done most consistently in the last century is wholeheartedly embrace fads - but like diet cures, with a dismal success rate. I couldn't come up with one example of when any of these has worked over time (sustained success) and at scale. Can you? As with diets, there is no miracle pill that takes no effort, has no side effects and maintains ideal and guilt-free health and fitness.

Ideas like "21st Century learning" freak me out. The nature of life is that things change - today's internet is yesterday's library or bookstore; today's cell phone is yesterday's letter (the kind you mail); today's podcast is yesterday's correspondence course... The only truth is that tomorrow will not be like yesterday. What "21st century" skill would not have been useful in the 18th century when this country was formed?

Mainstream schools today seem like the worst kind of sweatshops. If anyone in the education system needed a union, it's the students. When you find a school whose leadership is the strongest advocate for the students, you find a pretty good place to learn. They don't come at it with isms - that's not the path to greatness.

So what should a student be? How can school contribute to the graduate being more than the freshman?

If I had a child there are three things I'd want them to be - resourceful (find things, learn things, get things done), fearless (never let someone else's lack of imagination or inhibition stop you), and passionate (care about things, and share your ideas). Above these three, I'd want them to be filled with joy.

Shouldn't a school be able to contribute to this, be the place where creativity and exploration happen? Don't you want to be these three things as well?

Deciding what change a school system needs doesn't IMHO begin with standards or curricula or tests (and certainly not isms) - it begins by first describing what we want ourselves to be - making that our mission statement and building something that manifests that destiny. If you start with, say "we need more nerds," you're destined to fail as we've proven time and time again.

forests and trees

If you're in a position of power, chances are you want to hang on to it. If you're in a position of power and you don't have to do a lot stay there, you like it even more; and if you've had it this way for years, complacency has set in as well. What's your natural reaction if someone or something challenges that power? Do you welcome change or do you hunker down, decry it, and marshal your resources to defend because you believe the status quo is righteous and "they" are just plain wrong? 

Despite all resistance, there are things beyond your control - some examples that come to mind include Open Source to Microsoft; bad carbs and saturated fats to fast food restaurants; cell phones in children's hands to teachers, etc. In the first case, the company still rails against their competition but now demonstrates interoperability and even distributes open source software of its own. In the second case, most fast food companies have seen the future and shifted to healthier options.

In the third case, most schools, teachers and unions continue to passionately resist change; they are adamant about the "right" way to learn, closing the door to Google, Wikipedia, the Internet, cell phones, etc.

Dean Shareski wrote a great blog calling out schools that on the one hand ask for technology in the classroom, but then prevent students from bringing their own tech to school because it would erode "the traditional education model." David Warlick wrote teacher shock about students who aren't being taught about the world around them.  Chris Lehmann also wrote a great post about a presentation to the FCC on the role of teachers in the new world of teaching.

A couple of months ago, I wrote that teachers and schools are the gatekeepers to information and accreditation, but it is changing rapidly - their hold on information is all but gone, and the value of their accreditation is diminishing as quality and relevance wane. Despite this, the incumbents remain vigilant in their fight to "control" the classroom in the name of true learning and status quo.

Dean, David and Chris are heroically pushing their fellow educators to shirk the past and embrace technology as an opportunity to transform education from the inside vs. resist and be done unto by external forces. In the business world, an apt metaphor is: "if someone's going to eat your lunch, it may as well be you, even if you have to cannibalize an existing revenue stream to do it."

The "Resistance" has powerful weapons - tenure, the political power of unions, a massive and highly distributed bureaucracy, and low self-esteem resulting from being at siege for so long. Aikido masters teach their students to blend with their opponents' motion and redirect the force to a more advantageous outcome. I think the Education community can do the same.

Blend

I'd argue for consistency and consolidation of administration across the country. Imagine how much money and energy it would save if there was one education standard mapped to one set of curriculum? The lesson plans should be at the discretion of schools and teachers, but should incorporate the use of advanced concepts like computers, calculators and cell phones - this is their biggest compromise, but look what they get in return (one standard, one curriculum).

Redirect

Take all the savings from the rationalization and invest it in increased pay and benefits for teachers.

Gain Advantageous Outcome

Improve and equalize the education service provided to every student in the country, grow teacher pay, hopefully improve student outcomes, do it without increasing the budget for education in the country, look like heroes, and get paid.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I doubt it - this is a classic case where the Resistance is stuck in the trees and can't see the forest.