Teaching Matters hosted principals from across New York City and other education industry leaders to dialog with Michael Horn, co-author of the bestselling book Disrupting Class, at our Third Annual Forum for Principals on July 13th.

What is interesting about innovations that are disruptive is that, initially, they may appear to be much lower quality, especially in comparison to what is available (for example, the $300 mini-laptop is not as powerful as your old desktop computer), but they offer other appealing advantages – convenience, affordability, simplicity and the ability to serve individuals who previously might have been left behind. The opportunities for disruptive innovation often happen in areas of “non consumption” that is, places where there is a need but little to no service available. Over time, as more people take advantage of the lower quality but innovative product, it continues to improve and eventually leads the market, displacing what came before.

Horn offered school leaders food for thought when he applied this theory to the K – 12 arena, explaining that online learning is a promising disruptive innovation to note. Online learning can make instruction more accessible and individualized, therefore making learning more focused and efficient in meeting student needs. Horn projected that online learning is no flash in the pan. Two years ago, he projected that by 2019; approximately 50% of high school courses will be taken online. Today, that once radical predication may be turning out to be too conservative. In fact, Horn thinks they will likely reach 50% ahead of 2019.

Overcoming Barriers to Innovation

As part of the forum, principals had a chance to reflect with their peers on the theory of disruptive innovation and how they might find ways to experiment. Attendees discussed ways to create discrete, independent experimental spaces to seed innovative ideas in their schools without the pressure of worrying about the impact on the core program. Horn provided principals an exciting list of areas that he believed were ripe for disruptive innovation beyond high school including some surprises like preschool!

Online Learning Has a Way to Go

Not surprising given Horn’s theory, many principals complained about the quality of online courses today, “textbooks online .. that is all most of them are right now,” said one principal.

Horn spoke candidly to the principals telling them that they can influence the quality of the online learning available to students if they collectively demand it. He indicated that state policies will have to reward actual learning not “seat time” if we want to incentivize the creation of transformative, high quality online learning. Simply rewarding seat-time could lead to a “race to the bottom” in terms of the quality of the online learning. States need to create the right policies or the wrong vendors will be rewarded.

Teaching Matters also brought Michael Horn to speak to a group of investors in K-12 education in a follow up session. Teaching Matters shared the frustrations that many principals experience with the content now available. The reaction -- a few agreed that we have a ways to go -- but still believe this is a very interesting area for innovation in education.