In the face of enormous hurdles and despite changing demands on schools, teachers and administrators have constantly improved public schools in the United States and navigated the disruptions imposed upon them. The latter is something almost no manager in private industry has been able to do." ~Clayton Christensen, Disrupting Class
Chapter 2 of Disrupting Class defines the idea of disruption. In essence, disruption is a changing of the game and is different than improvement or innovation. One example in the private sector is computers. In the early days of computers, the manufacturers made computers bigger and more powerful to meet the needs of their primary customers, NASA and the like. They were constantly innovating and improving the computer but they were never meant to be a household thing and so the average person did not have access to computers. When Apple and others came along with personal computers, they introduced an inferior product but one that was affordable for people who previously didn't have computers. This disrupted the computing industry. They couldn't compete with this inferior product. Their business model failed and these companies died out.
In schools, disruption comes in the form of changing the goal posts. With every new job assigned to schools, changing school populations, legislation changing what schools are meant to do the school system is disrupted. And despite all of the disruption schools have survived and are still (despite popular opinion) slowly improving. Our schools have done what companies in the private sector cannot: survive disruption. No company has been able to survive disruption without a complete change in their business model. For schools to continue to adapt to the constantly changing goalposts a.k.a. Disruptions we should revisit the "business" model of schools.
In schools, disruption comes in the form of changing the goal posts. With every new job assigned to schools, changing school populations, legislation changing what schools are meant to do the school system is disrupted. And despite all of the disruption schools have survived and are still (despite popular opinion) slowly improving. Our schools have done what companies in the private sector cannot: survive disruption. No company has been able to survive disruption without a complete change in their business model. For schools to continue to adapt to the constantly changing goalposts a.k.a. Disruptions we should revisit the "business" model of schools.