What if our schools were run by AirBnB

OK, the title is a little provocative, but after spending almost 20 years in the school system, I think we need to get off of our high horse. In the name of student safety and privacy, we are willing to run our school systems like factories from the turn of the 20th century, missing out on important changes in society and leading our kids down paths that put them in debt not help them find jobs and build happier lives.

So what would it look like if parents were more active consumers of rating information and reviews online as they were making decisions about their schools. There is actually a ton of information now between organizations like greatschools.org and ratemyteachers. But it’s not really driving decision-making. Why is that? Because 90% of parents send their children to the school down the street. So the big decision you have to make is where to live, and many parents spend a lot of time worrying about schools when they do that. But once you do, you are locked in. As we all know from the real-world, if the ability to make choices comes once a decade, there’s not a strong incentive for daily improvement in your service provider.

Now, there are several school districts around the country which offer parents free choice of their schools. Denver, New Orleans, and even San Francisco do this, but still not game changing. Why is that? The schools themselves, since they are part of a bigger district, are shielded from the immediate impact of bad ratings and reviews.

That was the idea with charter schools, they would have to survive on their own. That’s my old world, and I would just say that the challenge with that world is that politically the school districts which lose students to charters, are also in charge of the charters! So that’s probably not going to work.

Hunting for places where a rating and review system could build enough trust with parents led me to investigate the daycare world, where in fact several companies including Wonderschool and Weecare are building rating systems and helping parents find daycares that fit. Given that the current generation of parents is digitally wired, these services are likely to do well.

There are sites now rating all of the coding schools, and that seems promising.

I would love to hear from you if you have find other areas where a transparent rating and review system can have an impact on day to day education for students.