Sometimes the Best Ideas Crash and Burn

The recent news regarding the Microsoft School of the Future's Sad Decline to Failure is, without question, a disappointment to those of us interested in transforming education for overall improvement in America.

The new bleeding-edge public high school in Philadelphia is the brainchild of Microsoft who wrapped its innovative ideas for education reform around a partnership with Philadelphia Public Schools (and their funding) for creating a model school touted as one that would revolutionize education. "This cutting edge school would teach at-risk students critical 21st century skills needed for college and the workforce by emphasizing project-based learning, technology, and community involvement." says eSchoolNews in their June 1, 2009 article outlining the reasons for failure. Add LEED certification for a "green school" and we've got a great idea, right?

Well, problem is, they ignored reality.

That's right. They (Microsoft and the school district) ignored the real fact that expecting Philadelphia Public Schools to take this beautiful new school, toss in some nice technology and contemporary ideas, undergo initial training from Microsoft, and thence majically transfigure several centuries of traditional teaching into a learning habitat akin to nothing less than education nirvana was, without doubt, a story straight from some faraway fantasy land. It would be like asking an entire culture to spontaneously change their religion.

But change, we have found out, requires a tremendous amount of effort to sustain. And change can only survive when the outside pressure for change is consistently greater than the internal pressure to remain the same. I would suspect that the outside pressure for education change in this environment was fairly low. Remember that the surrounding neighborhood there in Philadelphia appears to be one of mixed existance including those who probably care greatly about education, and those who have abandoned their run-down row houses.

To be fair, though, there were speedbumps, or rather, roadblocks along the way. In the time since the school opened in 2006, the district has had three different superintendents, the school has had four different principals, and the school's teachers were not allowed to have any additional professional development above and beyond what was afforded any teacher at other "regular" schools in the district (thanks likley due to the labor union). And like the "blue screen of death", Microsoft said upfront it did not intend to run the school itself. It would provide some initial training and then turn the day-to-day management of the school over to the district. Good luck.

And with federal No Child Left Behind legislation leaving hopes for contemporary change in the lurch, the idea of radical changes in how public high schools do business in this country seems, in this case, to have run smack into reality.

In April of 2008, an administrative team from my school district visited the Philadelphia School of The Future. I'll outline how that visit went in my next post.