Do We Really Need To Build Another School?

A Logical Approach To A Big Question

Lately there has been a lot of discussion around town regarding the overcrowding of Wando High School. I haven’t really heard any other ideas on how we might solve this problem other than to build another school, so I have taken it upon myself to think of at least one proactive solution.

There are already a large number of nationally accredited colleges offering entire degrees and certifications through an online curriculum, and one has to ask the question: Why can’t we do this for high school students also? It is just a matter of adoption. When the first fax machines and cell phones came out there were only a few hundred people around any given community that had them. But as these technologies became more cost effect and, certainly, as more and more people used them, everybody else had to have them also.

The internet community is about to grow to 3 billion as the earth becomes more and more hard-wired. The workers of the future aren’t just going to be competing with Joe down the street, or John who graduated from Harvard Business School – they will be competing with Harish from India, Xiao from China, and the billions of other workers all over the world. It’s called Globalization, and when we say “The workers of the future”, what we really mean is, “The workers of tomorrow.” User-adoption of the internet continues to grow at exponential rates, and we still have yet to see the mobile internet take off in the US, even though countries like Japan are years ahead of us with mobile computing.

Earlier this year Verizon Communications gained permission to land their Trans-Pacific fiber optic bandwidth cable in Oregon, linking mainland China with mainland US. Several weeks later Google, along with six other companies in the Unity conglomerate, announced their plans to link Japan to California. The world is becoming more and more wired at an extraordinary rate, and China already has all the capabilities it needs to become the next silicon valley – raw materials, giant factories, technological know-how, and all.

There is little, if any, doubt as to the vital importance of being web-savvy in today’s working community, and it would be difficult to argue that students should not be learning how to learn online at earlier ages anyway. I have already heard many talks about the construction of another massive complex – as if this is the only solution. Have we learned nothing from the great mathematician of Antiquity, Archimedes, who once said, “Give me a place to stand on and I will move the Earth.” Of course, he was speaking in terms of leveraging that which he already possessed, which allowed him to generate incredible force with very little effort.

In a time when technology has given us the ability to tap into the collective brilliance of mankind through the internet, why not explore this medium, as so many other colleges have successfully done already, to educate our youth?

Not only would it take a fraction of the time to develop the online platform (probably available by next fall), it would only require a fraction of the cost. After all, how much does it cost to hire an architect, construction crew, engineers, and materials for constructing a new educational facility? Here’s a hint: $65,000,000. As a private educator who has been leveraging web technologies for almost two years now, it has become entirely clear to me that web languages and technologies have finally become sophisticated enough to transform information into personal, meaningful lessons. To be sure, we have spent far less than even $30,000 to develop our own platform to a utilitarian degree. Granted, we have done a lot of the work ourselves, but isn’t that the point anyway?

For ten million dollars, as an example, not more than 2% of that ($200,000) should be adequate for programming the online community, 20% ($2,000,000) really should be enough to “subsidize” enough hardware and equipment to support students, teachers, parents, and admin, and 20% ($2,000,000) would increase the amount of money teachers should be paid for the additional skills they would have to develop to accomplish this task. The rest could be spent for incidental expenses and could serve as a treasury to fund IT support, networking, and other expenses. It might cost a little more than that, but not really much – if at all. It is far more likely that this will be way more than is needed. Logically, we might handle it this way:

1.) Split Wando High School into two halves: 1: Freshmen and Sophomores, and 2: Juniors and Seniors.

2.) Freshmen and Sophomores would attend school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Juniors and Seniors would attend school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

3.) Fridays would alternate between the two groups so that Freshmen and Sophomores would attend this week, as an example, and next week Juniors and Seniors would go.

4.) On days when students were not physically in class, they would be at home and online – meeting with their teachers and fellow students just as they would during any online course.

5.) After school extra-curricular activities would move forward as “business as usual.” Students who attend school online during the day would still go after school for soccer practice, additional tutoring, and so forth.

This would save on gas, traffic jams, and travel time for students, and even though it might be tedious to develop an adequate transportation system for students who rode the bus, this really is just a detail.

As a society we have invested so much time, energy, and resources to develop computing and information technology to where it is today, it sure does seem like we could Think Archimedes, so to speak, as a way of addressing the issue. Why not leverage resources that are readily available NOW.

In a time when the economy has been blind-sided by the government having to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the state of Texas after Ike, and AIG … when 284 major lending institutions have collapsed since 2006 … when government debt service payments are the third highest bill of the government and climbing … isn’t it just time to ACTUALLY change how we think about solutions to problems. In this political climate of promises and showboating, let us remember that it isn’t the politicians that have historically solved our problems.

Collectively, we have the ability – there is no shortage of imagination and brilliance within all of us to develop real, meaningful solutions outside of the box. It doesn’t take the government – it just takes a little courage and determination. After all, what better lesson can we teach our own children other than to dream big, dream hard, and never, ever give up.

Just a thought…