K-12 education is one of the last sectors in our lives where the pace of innovation has not caught up with our technology age. Fast innovation requires rapid experimentation and iterations. It starts with formulating a new idea, implementing it, evaluating it in a real-world setting, then iterating the design and implementation towards perfection. The quicker one could iterate, the faster the innovation is and the greater advance we make. Unfortunately in today’s school system, there are many hurdles [1] for a widespread, rapid experimentation of innovative teaching: Schools must work within government-imposed constraints and there is a very limited budget for education R&D: “the US invests only 0.2% of its education budget on R&D versus the top tech companies that routinely spend more than 10 percent”. Because it is free and ubiquitous, public schools remain popular and innovation is a bonus, but not a necessity.
Nevertheless, there is an area where education innovation is a necessity for its very existence. American children spend less than 1000 hours a year in the school; parents work 2000 hours a year. For the 1000 hours of no school and no parents, we have seen some exciting K-12 education innovations taking place outside schools. In the form of summer camps and after-school enrichment classes, many creative and practical topics are being taught by some very passionate teachers: Children can access leading-edge technologies and learn 3D modeling and printing, perform creative story-telling using virtual reality, build their confidence and public speaking skills through theatre performances, gain engineering skills from old-fashioned carpentry, cooking, sewing to modern, digital-age engineering like Minecraft programming and robot building and competition, learn life lessons and build characters from martial arts, board games, and sports, be immersed in music, art, and learn the dance moves from classical to tap dancing to break dancing, learn history and its impact on technical inventions from the journey of Marco Polo or WWII. Even traditional topics like math and English are made special and fun.
There is a fundamental reason that these enrichment programs are so creative and engaging: they are optional instead of required. If they are not effective and valuable, parents will drop them. So, the very goals of these programs are to be different from regular schooling, to appeal to children’s interests, and to be meaningful for learning all at the same time. Without any regulatory constraints, enrichment educators can quickly experiment and iterate their teaching content. A good idea can be immediately implemented and experimented in the following quarter, reducing the cycle of iteration from years to quarters.
Despite the fact that enrichment education is a 22 billion dollar industry [2] with both strong supply from innovative teachers and enthusiastic demand from eager parents, the “roads” are very difficult between classes and children’s calendars. Take summer camp planning as an example: Parents need to visit many camp providers’ websites obtained from friends or through google search, manually find programs that satisfy their children’s ages, interests, driving constraints, and schedules at each provider’s website. Often parents put together a spreadsheet to piece classes from different providers into a coherent schedule across the 10 weeks of the summer—that is quite a puzzle to solve. After figuring out this schedule, a parent needs to go to each provider’s website to create an account and password and to fill out lengthy registration forms repetitively. This process can take parents weeks to finalize and is painful. As a clear contrast, in other industries like vacation housing and rides, we have seen companies like AirBnb and Lyft or Uber to revolutionalize how supply and demand can be met efficiently at a central marketplace and travelers and riders get what they need in a snap with delight.
In another example, it is a common and great practice for parent volunteers (PTAs/PTOs) or school principals to bring wonderful after-school enrichment programs to children right at their schools. School is the most convenient place for such after-school programs for both children and parents, removing the need for transportation. More importantly, parent volunteers or school principals can source the best enrichment vendors for the school’s children. However, managing after-school programs is a complex operation [3] including selecting providers and programs, coordinating with enrichment providers on programs and locations, interacting with parents for registration, managing class volunteers and granting scholarships, maintaining up-to-date rosters to be on top of children’s whereabouts after school hours, and managing payment to enrichment providers. Such complex operations turned some schools away; they resort to simpler after-school care arrangement provided by a single entity, reducing competition among enrichment education businesses. Many PTA volunteers expressed that they’d much prefer a great assortment of after-school enrichment programs over after-school care, but the amount of work is too daunting.
So, how can we improve the efficiency of enrichment education industry and turn this into a vibrant ground for rapid education innovation? We can borrow the concept of “operating system” which has powered the incredible software innovation that has transformed the world and our lives. Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows are the most popular operating systems today. Why is operating system such a powerful concept and innovation engine? There are two key reasons. First, operating systems make it much easier for developers to program new applications because they hide and abstract away the complexity of the underlying hardware and provide an easier programming interfaces. Second and more importantly, popular operating systems are critical and efficient distribution channels to millions and even billions of consumers. It is the ease of development and distribution that has enabled so many groups and individuals to express, experiment and realize their creativity. As of March, 2017 [4], there are 2.8 millions of Android applications, 2.2 millions of iOS applications, and 669K Windows applications. These are astonishing numbers. Each application represents a nugget of creativity and innovation to improve our lives. Indeed, they have fundamentally transformed our modern life with seamless means of communications, socializing, navigation, shopping, traveling, project or customer management, entertainment, learning, medical treatment, and more.
Just as an operating system delivers or makes various applications available to consumers where-ever and when-ever they are needed and allows easy creation of applications, wouldn’t it be nice if we have a system that delivers enrichment to parents and children where-ever, when-ever enrichment is needed and allows anyone who is capable and passionate about teaching to inject new creative enrichment classes into the system? On this system, parents can access enrichment by easily searching, scheduling, booking and sharing activities anywhere, whether they are on school premise or outside schools, and anytime, whether it is for after-school during school year, weekends, or during school breaks. On this system, educators can easily and economically manage class operations like listing, marketing, registrations, rosters, parents communications and reporting so that they can be freed to focus on teaching. Also, on this system, enrichment businesses can easily hire excellent teachers, rent or share teaching spaces, and even raise funding to bootstrap an enrichment education business. This system would be the operating system for K-12 enrichment education, making both producing and consuming enrichment much easier. When it is easier to teach and easier to get taught, this system will enable abundant education supply and the marketplace competiton will incentivize the best quality education content and rapid innovation.
We have built 6crickets.com to be such an operating system for K-12 enrichment education. In just under three years, we have created novel technologies to accomplish the first set of basic functions of an enrichment education operating system: (1) streamlined and minimal-cost operations for educators through online registration, roster and customer management, (2) efficient school enrichment management among parents, educators, and schools, making enrichment management at schools easy, (3) highly-targeted, class-level, schedule-based class-to-student matching and economical marketing at an online marketplace. 6crickets continues to strengthen this operating system with more functions to remove the remaining frictions for educators, schools, and parents.
Outside-school enrichment is an area where we have seen and will continue seeing the divide between affluent and underprivileged families. Because they are costly (and have private-school-level pricing), low-income families cannot afford them. In the US, students have just 180 days [5] in the school. So children spend half of their days outside schools. This means potentially signficant learning loss for those who cannot afford outside-school enrichment. This is an area that deserves attention from philanthropists and government.
In summary, K-12 education demands a much faster pace of innovation that matches today’s technology age. Outside school enrichment is an easier place for innovation. Operating systems are needed to reduce friction, enable abundant and rapid innovations and education supply, and to efficiently distribute enrichment to parents where-ever and when-ever needed. This approach may represent one of the most efficient paths towards cracking K-12 education innovation. Furthermore, outside-school enrichment is an area that deserves more attention from philanthropists and government to bridge the education divide between affluent and low-income families.
References:
[1] “13 Barriers to Education Innovation”: October, 2014 http://www.gettingsmart.com/2014/10/13-barriers-education-innovation/
[2] “After-School Program Providers: Market Research Report”, July 2017, https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-reports/consumer-goods-services/education-providers/after-school-program-providers.html
[3] “How to successfully manage your school’s enrichment programs with ease and no cost”, May 2017, https://www.6crickets.com/blog/2017/05/20/1290_how-to-successfully-manage-your-schools-enrichment-programs-with-ease-and-no-cost
[4] “Number of apps available in leading app stores as of March 2017”: March 2017, https://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/
[5] “Time in school: How does the U.S. compare?”, December 2011, http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Organizing-a-school/Time-in-school-How-does-the-US-compare