“If I had 60 minutes to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I’d spend 55 minutes determining the right question to ask. Once I got the right question, I could easily answer it in 5 minutes.”
— Albert Einstein

For decades, administrators in education have been asking: “how can we get more money for education?” Over the last several decades many solutions have been tried: parents and students paying more for tuition, states increasing subsidies, foundations and the federal government increasing grants and scholarships. These administrators have, in many ways, been successful in getting a lot more money funneled towards education. However, by most metrics, educational achievement at all levels has declined in the last several decades.

With that, perhaps the better questions to be asking should be: “how do we get better outcomes for the same money?” Given the status of federal and state budgets, it is this question that will occupy the next several decades. Thankfully, there are numerous possible answers. The question goes to the issue of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. As the business community has discovered time and again, this question leads to better, faster, and cheaper products that are consumed on a grander scale thereby creating more value. Unlike moving money from one program to another, this is not a zero sum game, but rather one that improves the well being of the consumer of education and the knowledge, wealth and resources of the community.

Legislation is being drafted in California (SB 520) that will make it possible for students to take free online courses and then to “test out” of required on-campus courses via proctored exams. For students that pass the exam, the state funded colleges and universities will be required to provide transferable course credit. Once this legislation is in place, students in California will have a choice of either paying approximately $1,000 for the privilege of physically taking a class or of paying the $100 assessment fee for validating the learning provided by a free online course. While the actual course experience may not be the same, the student will now have a choice about where their educational spending will go.

At many state colleges and universities as many as 30% of incoming freshmen cannot pass the entry level math test and are required to take remedial math courses at college level costs. In the public school system all too many schools, especially in rural and interurban districts, have a shortage of well-qualified math teachers. These schools cannot find the money to hire enough teachers. It is no wonder that so many students arrive at the college gate not prepared in math.

However, the Khan Academy has math courses that can be utilized for free to address this gap. From the most basic 1 + 1 all the way to Calculus, all of Khan’s math courses are online for free and feature a free assessment tool that can be used by teachers, coaches or parents to track the progress of students. The assessment system requires mastery — that the student understands each core concept fully — before they are allowed to advance. This is available today. For free.

However, for school boards to champion the use of such a tool, they need to shift from their current focus of getting more money for education to getting more education for the money.

The explosion of MOOCs in early 2012 is still sending shock waves around the world as people realize that they now have highly cost effective alternatives to the traditional academic system. However, in developed countries such as the United States where there are strong entrenched interests championing the traditional system, it will take an effort by students, parents, and legislators to change the question from “how to get more money for education” to “how to get more education for the money”. Only after that will the answers be found that will solve the problem.

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