Salmon Khan Describes What Will Comes Next for Khan Academy. This Model Will Eventually Shut Down the Public Schools.

Gary North

Sept. 6, 2010

I am asking you to invest 25 minutes to watch a video. It's a cheap yet creative video. It's a good model of what a video should be.

If you are a violence-abhorring revolutionary, you had better invest this time. This is your kind of video.

Khan is on the cutting edge of a revolution that he has created with his site, www.KhanAcademy.org. He shows what is coming next. This blew my mind. He is moving way beyond videos.

The Web lets him do this. It lets anyone do this. It will all be free of charge.

I had the same idea of adding forums for student-run tutorials. I have put the project on hold for a while. He will get there first. That's OK with me. He can get the kinks out.

He is going to do what I want Ron Paul to do: www.RonPaulCurriculum.com. I plan to teach a Mises Academy course in January 2011 on designing that site.

This model will spread. As it spreads, the public schools will turn into the equivalent of the TV networks: organizations with declining numbers of users, and a lower median IQ among those users who remain.

Here are the basics of education:

One size doesn't fit all.
The lowest common denominator slows down the process.
Students learn best at their own speed.
The best way to learn any subject is to teach it.
Students can tutor other students.
Digital technology is decentralizing everything.
Free is cheap.
The division of labor works.
Wikipedia already offers the basics.
Each social group has its own agenda.
The Establishment has its agenda.
This agenda is at best a compromise for everyone else.
All gatekeepers are losing ground.
There are many valid ways to certify competence.
If you can pass the exam, you don't need a classroom.
Bureaucracies are not efficient.
Unionized bureaucracies are the least efficient bureaucracies.
Monopolies are not efficient.
State-run monopolies are the least efficient monopolies.
Control over education is the most important political monopoly.
The state is going bankrupt.
Therein lies an entrepreneurial opportunity

Then there is this rule:

You can't beat something with nothing.

There is now a way to beat something visibly failing with something incomparably better.

Conclusions:

The teachers' unions days are numbered.
The state textbook committees' days are numbered.
The Establishment's days are numbered.

Sal Khan is just one man. Don't ever again ask this: "What can one man do?" He can do this.