In a recent interview with Slate, Khan Academy founder Salman Khan is asked how he gets the education establishment to go along with his vision (and the vision of many others) of using technology to better customize learning. His answer doesn’t include the term “seat time," but he suggests most of “the establishment” (he uses air quotes, too) already agrees the practice is obsolete. Here’s his response in full:

I actually think the majority, almost everyone we talk to who are part of the establishment, are in violent agreement with us. And if anything, they’ve been frustrated, because they’re all well meaning, intelligent, talented people who care about kids. But they’ve, they’ve – sometimes not even been able to articulate it – but they’ve felt hampered. They say, yeah, I see that kid does not understand basic multiplication, but I need to forward them. In the existing system, it kind of was what they had to do. So I think a lot of them view this as a chance almost to get liberated. I think the stuff that – I wouldn’t even say threatens – I think the stuff that the infrastructure that will go away is this whole infrastructure around what is, what has to happen on Day 18 in the seventh grade in California? Or Day 28 in the sixth grade in Louisiana? That whole kind of scaffolding of state mandated curricula, I think that’s probably - I think will go away. And really, I haven’t seen anybody really defend that.

Also in the Slate interview (there are two other short videos), Khan mentions his company’s partnership with public schools in the Los Altos school district - and the incredible impact its approach is having on student achievement. Khan Academy also has a partnership with Step Up For Students, involving 10 private schools in the Tampa area that serve low-income students with tax credit scholarships. More about that here. More about the erosion of seat time here.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott's visit to a new charter school yesterday was not only noteworthy because it reaffirmed his commitment to parental school choice, but because of who was by his side: former state Sen. Al Lawson, a Tallahassee Democrat now running for Congress.

“Throughout my 28 years in the Legislature I always wanted education reform for our young people. I had the opportunity to tour the state on many occasions to look into what was happening with our public schools. And I was always excited about the opportunity to help with public charter schools in the state," Lawson said after the visit to Governors Charter Academy, a K-8 school run by Charter Schools USA. "This is a great addition, not only to the state but to Tallahassee. And we have kids here that I’m really excited about. I’ve never seen kids act so well with all this media, so it’s already starting here. This is the kind of thing we want to improve education. That’s what it’s all about, whether you’re Democrat or Republican, about how we train our future leaders, because they have to take our place.”

Lawson was among the first black lawmakers in Florida who broke ranks with traditional allies to vote for vouchers and tax credit scholarships. (more…)

Midway through this week’s National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C., I was reminded of an observation Thomas Kuhn made in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While researching how scientific fields progress, Kuhn found that during paradigm shifts communities work to improve the old paradigm while simultaneously creating the new paradigm that will render much of the old paradigm irrelevant.

Ending social promotion is a good example of this phenomenon in education today. Reformers in Washington were discussing the importance of ending social promotion while advocating for a customized public education system in which assembly-line education, and therefore grade-level promotion, no longer exists.

Tenure reform and merit pay are also good examples. These reform discussions usually assume employment and compensation will continue to be centrally determined, but in the new paradigm these decisions will probably be made at the school level or below, which means they will have little or no systemic implications. Tenure and merit pay are not contentious issues today within charter school and virtual learning communities. (more…)