By John Bailey
August 7, 2013
Over at Forbes, Julius Genachowski, former FCC Chairman (and member of the Aspen Taskforce on the Internet and Learning), points out how state and local governments are the new battleground for innovation:
What’s going on here? In cities and states across the country, two forces are engaged in battles with major consequences for the future of the Internet and the U.S. innovation economy.
The first force is new ventures harnessing technology—particularly the Internet and mobile—to challenge incumbents in a growing number of industries: From hotels (Airbnb) to rental cars (ZipCar, RelayRides, Car2Go) to taxis (SideCar, Lyft, Uber) to car dealerships (Tesla) to parking lots (Parking Panda) to textbooks (Chegg) to lending and fundraising (Lending Club, Kickstarter) to restaurants (food trucks) to boating (Boatband, GetMyBoat) to errand running services (TaskRabbit) to Internet service (Chattanooga, TN; Lafayette, LA; Google Fiber).
The second force in these battles is city and state governments, which typically have long and deep relationships with established industries. Not surprisingly, and acting rationally from their perspective, existing businesses have been lobbying state and local officials to restrict new entrants.
And across the country, new laws are being proposed and enacted—and existing but out-of-date laws are being enforced—to protect incumbents from new Internet- and mobile-based competitors. (emphasis added)
These same two forces are at play in education as well. New models of learning such as online schools, blended learning, and competency-based learning are running into legacy regulations and laws designed to protect the traditional players and system. State policy can free up funds to flow to digital content or it can reinforce print resources. Policy can open up new models of learning, or it can shut them out, just as Illinois did this last session when it passed a law banning the creation of any new virtual schools. Sometimes, legislation does both. In Texas, the legislature passed a bill that gave 2.5 million students the option of taking up to three courses online while simultaneously freezing the launch of any new full-time online school.
Fred Wilson has also talked about this challenge and it is the core reason why we focus on working with state policymakers to create a policy climate that is open to innovation and accelerates new models of learning.
Genachowski urges state and local leaders to “Give innovative new services the benefit of the doubt. And where there are issues to address, take a tailored, technology-neutral approach.” The same should apply to innovation in education as well. Create the space to try new services, models, and approaches and do so in an approach that is provider neutral – be it a non-profit, private provider, start-up, or B-Corp. The 10 Elements offer a useful policy framework for thinking about the regulatory and policy environment needed to support innovation.