On Failure in Schools: The Good Kind and the Bad

I joined Betsy Jewell on the latest episode of her podcast, “High School Hamster Wheel,” to talk about my most recent book, From Reopen to Reinvent. We covered a lot in the episode, which you can listen to here. In particular, I expressed my frustration and continued bafflement that we aren’t having an honest conversation in this country about the limitations of our K—12 school system—namely, how it embeds failure by design.

Until we address this structural limitation and move to a guarantee of mastery, all the conversations about valuing and developing the potential of each and every child are hopelessly stuck and pointless in today’s zero-sum schools. As we reviewed the themes from my book (which you can learn more about here), that wasn’t the only topic on which I expressed strong views. But the embedding of failure strikes me as one we need to address. The type of failure embedded in today’s schools isn’t the productive gift of failure that is a step on the road to making sure each child learns. Instead, it’s the type of failure that labels students, limits their opportunity at arbitrary points, and doesn’t help our nation fully develop its base of human capital. In the book, I detail at length how individual schooling communities can move beyond this system of failure.

If you’re interested in having me speak to your school community or district over the next several months, send me a note. Having returned from a trip to New York City where I had the chance to spend time with several schools speaking about the themes from the book, I see it as even more critical that we have this frank conversation on the ground.

More on Failure

Failure of course can also be a positive if it’s framed as a step on the road to learning more. That’s also a big point in my book. Indeed, if you live in Silicon Valley, you’ll hear stories everywhere that extoll the benefits of “failing forward” and of founders who have had multiple flops before magically creating a unicorn company. It’s all a story of upside.

But as Diane Tavenner shared with me on the latest episode of Class Disrupted, failure in life and schools can be hard. And we should be honest about that. In this revealing conversation, Diane gets real about how failure can feel.

Yet, this doesn’t mean that failure isn’t an important—and indeed, necessary—step in learning and innovating. One key is that it can’t be framed as an endpoint, as it is in traditional schools. After Diane and I discuss her emotions around failure and the challenges it can pose, we continued our set of conversations about what this means for innovating in schools. Diane shared about how, after a set of tests in her own schools didn’t work as planned, Summit Public Schools pivoted to a new direction.

You can listen to the full episode (or read the transcript) here, at “Why Failure and 'Pivoting' Is Hard in Education.”

Re-engaging Students After COVID

Although there's a palpable sense of relief on college campuses, as pandemic restrictions have been lifted and things are really starting to feel back to normal, many things have sprung back to what was normal pre-pandemic.

As Jeff Selingo said on the latest Future U. podcast, we've seen firsthand that although students are thrilled to be back on campuses, it’s also true that engagement inside and outside the classroom continues to be a challenge for many schools.

To help us think through ways colleges and universities can re-engage their learners in the classroom, one of my favorite people in higher education, Sanjay Sarma from MIT, joined us to talk about some of the themes from his book, Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn. One of the things I loved about Grasp is that, in my view, it does perhaps the best job of digging into the research behind how individuals learn while exposing many of the food fights in education between warring philosophical camps—say, between constructivists and behaviorists—as false dichotomies.

In the episode, Sanjay also spoke about a new paper he and his colleagues released, titled “An Affordable New Educational Institution.” Coming off our previous Future U. podcast on cost where I ranted about the importance of creating new higher education institutions to break false tradeoffs in how we design colleges, the paper is a breath of fresh air.

Check out our conversation with Sanjay, “Re-engaging Students after COVID,” here.

Colleges Consolidating

A College Loses Its Accreditation

It isn’t all that often that an accreditor acts and strips a college of its accreditation. But when it does, it often signals the ultimate failure for that school.

That’s what has most likely happened to Bay State College in downtown Boston in mid-January. In this NPR report, “Bay State students stunned by college’s demise,” GBH’s Kirk Carapezza details the news and its implications. I also offered my thoughts that we may be on the precipice of another wave of consolidation in higher education.

The Phoenix Is Falling

An even bigger story is the potential acquisition of the University of Phoenix by the University of Arkansas System. Natalie Schwartz at Higher Ed Dive has a good story titled, “What the potential acquisition of the University of Phoenix says about the for-profit sector.”

She interviewed me for her piece. Here’s one of my quotes: “University of Phoenix is the poster child for the for-profit higher education industry,” said Michael Horn, author of “Choosing College” and other books about education. “To see them potentially not just sell the university part of the business — but the entire enterprise — I think is quite a summary for the fortunes of for-profit higher ed.”

Remembering Jerry Hume

Finally, on a more somber note, Jerry Hume, passed away Jan. 23. Jerry was a proud American who sought to make the country better. Not only did he help grow his family’s business, Basic American Foods, into an international food service company, but he also helped oversee the Jaquelin Hume Foundation, one of the more impactful foundations involved in helping shape the future of education in the United States.

The Jaquelin Hume Foundation, under its executive director Gisele Huff, was the first foundation to give a grant to the Clayton Christensen Institute when I cofounded it. During my time as executive director, the Hume Foundation gave us several follow-on grants. As a result, I got to know Jerry somewhat. I’ll never forget presenting to him and his fellow trustees or visiting schools with him—a journey to the first Rocketship Public School stands out in my head. And I’ll never forget his admonitions—that we weren’t moving nearly fast enough to fix the public schools in this country or about the benefits of blended learning, competency-based learning, and personalizing learning. As a result of his impatience and desire to make a transformational impact, Jerry was willing to take risks—and have the Hume Foundation be some of the first money into different ideas and ventures to improve the fortunes of each and every child. As Gisele told me when she shared the news of Jerry’s passing, “Working with Jerry Hume for 22 years as executive director of the Jaquelin Hume Foundation was a labor of love fueled by his unstintingly and visionary commitment to transforming K-12 education for America’s children.” 

That seems right from what I observed. And something worth recommitting to.

As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.