Gary North

July 31, 2010

Some of you know that I have recommended to Ron Paul that he hire a bunch of hot-shot young men and women to create an online K-12 curriculum. My original article is here:

He can do this through his nonprofit organization. It would be a great use of the money.

I think he should offer it free of charge. The model is Khan Academy: www.KhanAcademy.org. That is the wave of the future. Surf's up! ("Cowabunga," as they said in my neighborhood in my youth.)

Before I wrote that article, I registered www.RonPaulCurriculum.com. That was not for my sake. That was for his. When he gets the curriculum ready to post, I'll give him the domain name.

I made a mistake. I failed to register the .org domain. Stupid.

Why give away the curriculum? So that any home school family can use it. So that any private day school can use it. So that any tax-funded school can use it. (Joke!)

Then how can he make any money?

The same way Google makes money.

How does Google make money? (1) It identifies that which can be distributed at no cost to users: search results and digital tools. (2) It then sells access to the most valuable real estate in history: online computer screen space. Google gets eyes to its Web pages; the eyes have it! What do they have? Money. With this two-part sales strategy, Google has made billions of dollars, and will make trillions, I suppose.

It costs the company money to run its servers, but it doesn't cost money to use Google's services. So, these services get used. Google has locked in "free" as no other company in history ever has. "Free" is making Google rich.

How could Ron Paul convert "free" to millions of dollars?

I thought you'd never ask.

The curriculum is free. But what costs money? Teachers. Smart, personal, principled teachers.

Are you getting my drift?

I visited the Mises Institute on Wednesday. I spoke with Jeff Tucker, who runs the various Mises sites. One of them in Mises Academy. You can sign up to take a course by an Austrian School professor -- you and up to 999 others. (Probably more like 50 to 100 others.) You will pay $250. Once a week, you will get an hour lecture. This course may last for 5 weeks. It may last for 10 weeks. You can get a grade. The exams are graded electronically. You can skip the grade. You can interact on-screen with fellow classmates. You can build a network.

Let's do the math. If you multiply $250 by 1,000, what do you get? For one course. Once.

Oh, my. Big oh, my.

Let's say the teacher gives what any university teacher would give: 45 lectures per semester course, a half dozen quizzes, and one 15-page term paper. (Joke! No one has done that since about 1962.) There is a mid-term and a final.

How reliable are digital finals? They can be quite reliable. Think of an Advanced Placement exam or a CLEP exam. It is graded by a machine. A student can get a semester's credit by taking an AP or CLEP exam, which is graded digitally. This is considered academically acceptable for college. Just imitate this in a digital final: a detailed exam. Will some state official say it isn't acceptable for high school? No.

If a course is for one year, the teacher then gives 90 lectures. The course generates $250,000 for 1,000 students. Half goes to the Ron Paul Academy. Half goes to a lecturer.

You think he can hire a lecturer for $125,000 for 90 lectures? I think so.

You think he can hire 10 lecturers for $12,500 per 90 lectures? Yes. Now the class size is down to 100 students. Can a teacher handle this? Yes. The students do most of the teaching, chatting, interacting. This is the experience of Mises Academy.

Can a typical family pay $1,250 for a year's high school curriculum (5 courses), taught by M.A.'s? Yes. Can Ron Paul find them? Yes. Where? Graduate schools across the nation and around the world. They are starving in grad school. They can teach one course for $1,000 a month, or two sessions of the same course for $2,000. That gets them what they need: basic income.

How many families would pay $1,250 a year to get a child taught with this curriculum by teachers screened by Ron Paul? Does 25,000 sound low? It does to me.

Do the math.

(Carol, do the math!)

By the way, I am only talking high school here. Add K-8. There is a market there, too.

What did I do yesterday? I registered www.RonPaulAcademy.com and www.RonPaulAcademy.org.

I'll sell them to Dr. Paul for $50,000 each. (Joke!) But if he paid me that, he would have a bargain. Chump change. I would much prefer 0.1% of the gross.

This is a gutter with a $50 bill floating down it every minute. In year one. More in year two.

I hope the Pauls look down.

I hope they buy a scooper.

If you think this is a good idea, send him a note saying so. Put this in the subject box: Ron Paul Academy.

Maybe Facebook people and Twitter people will promote this idea.

Maybe you know someone who would like to teach in the Academy. Forward this. If I wanted a job there, I would get my application in early -- before the Academy existed. Avoid the rush!

I might even consider teaching a class myself. A 1,000-student class. There won't be a term paper.