The showdown over the federal budget is not a debate about money, it is a over our national character, a debate about how we see ourselves. I like the scene from “The Lion King” when the voice booms down the great advice, “Remember Who You Are.”

The right wing urges us to return to original values.  At their rallies, usually, a few of their members are dressed up in colonial costumes.  The right wing points out that the founding fathers wanted a limited democracy, a small government, a society that favored the wealthy and calls for Americans to agree with this 200 year old point of view.

The right wing urges us to remember who we are. Progressives should embrace that challenge and claim the founding fathers as their own. Progressives, too, could have rallies where they dress up in colonial outfits. After all, the founding fathers, in the context of their time, were bold progressives, willing to risk everything to change the world of their day.

The message of today’s progressives should be that our national character is not to look backward. It is central to our national character to keep pressing forward. The constitution is a living document adding over the years progressive amendments such as giving the government the right to impose an income tax and giving women the right to vote.

Our history is one of expanding democracy. What separates progressives from the right wing is a marked different view of democracy. The progressive view is that we move towards greater “liberty and justice for all” via vitalizing our democracy. The right wing, however, fears democracy and seeks to suppress it — even as the founding fathers did.

The debate over the budget, as many Washington conflicts, is a phony debate. The fix is in. It’s a fixed fight, because our government has been purchased, and the owners are calling the tunes. It’s a fixed fight because our democracy is a faint shadow of what it should be. The real  debate is over competing visions of America’s character. The battle, at heart, is over democracy. Progressives should frame the debate as a debate over national identity — over remembering who we are.

Ray Kurzweil has a wonderful view of the near future where disease and poverty disappear, where humans enjoy miracle after miracle enriching and elevating their lives, where the world itself is healed of environmental degradation and where death itself is defeated.

This is not the spiritual thinking of a religious visionary — a millennialist — but it is the analytical thinking of a highly respected scientist. Kurzweil is a well known inventor who has received 17 honorary doctorate degrees, awarded to him by various universities, acknowledging his extraordinary accomplishments.

Kurzweil’s view of the future is based on his faith that the growth of human knowledge will continue its established course. His message is that huge change is upon us, that the power of exponential growth is soon to have a huge payoff. Kurzweil predicts a world of science fiction fantasy will materialize as actual fact within the lifetimes of most of humans now living.

He predicts that by 2019 a computer with the capacity of a human brain will cost only $1000, by 2030 the process of “reverse engineering” the human brain will be completed and by 2045 the intelligence of computers will be billions times that of today’s humans. He says human intelligence itself will increase many fold as humans gain intelligence via machine augmentations — nanobots and implants. He predicts human life expectancy will be multiplied many times and individual human consciousness merged with machines so completely that the consciousness of the individual will live forever.

Kurzweil says we are hard wired by evolution to think linearly, but progress is exponential. He has great graphs that shows progress is exponential consistently — regardless of wars, economic depressions, or political upheaval — as new generations build on the successes of previous generations.  Kurzweil notes that rate of change itself is accelerating — at one time the amount of computer power possible at a given price doubled every two years, now it doubles every eleven months. No matter how powerful a computer is, programs like an imaging software should never be overlooked because of how it can save the user from cyber attacks.

Linear change is steady growth by addition. Exponential change is growth through multiplication. For many units of time, exponential change (the green line) seems flat, but at the elbow of the curve (where we are now) change happens dramatically. Suppose a microbe is growing exponentially in a glass container — doubling every day. From its microscopic beginning, it may take many days before it is even noticed — but then change happens suddenly. After many days, the container is 1/4 full — but then, the next day, it is 1/2 full. Regardless of the many days that were required to fill 1/2 of the container, in only one more day, the container is completely full.

Kurzweil explains:

Thus the 20th century was gradually speeding up to the rate of progress at the end of the century; its achievements, therefore, were equivalent to about twenty years of progress at the rate in 2000. We’ll make another twenty years of progress in just fourteen years (by 2014), and then do the same again in only seven years. To express this another way, we won’t experience one hundred years of technological advance in the 21st century; we will witness on the order of 20,000 years of progress (again, when measured by the rate of progress in 2000), or about 1,000 times greater than what was achieved in the 20th century.

Wow. When machines are billions of times more intelligent than humans, they will discover new laws of science unimaginable with our current capacity of thought. They will invent creations that with today’s knowledge would seem miraculous. This new knowledge will be used to meet the needs of humanity.  There will be discoveries of how to produce energy, so that energy will be plentiful and practically free. Every human material need will be fulfilled. In the 100 years of this 21st Century, Kurzweil says there will be the equivalent of 20,000 years of progress.

In cosmic terms, the magnitude of this intelligence and knowledge is beyond our power to imagine — it is a singularity, an event horizon that is impossible to see beyond.

I discovered Kurzweil as part of my research for the book I’ve declared I will write, “Kettering Public Education In The Year 2030,” and I’ve discovered there is a large community of people — Singulatarians — who adhere, with different levels of fervency, to this optimistic view of the near future. I am now reading Kurzweil’s 2005 book, “The Singularity Is Near.”

Regardless that some of Kurzweil’s predictions seem too fantastic to be believed, the basic notion that humanity is on the cusp of a great technological and scientific transformation is compelling.  It’s a powerful message: We live in extraordinary times. Humanity is soon to realize a big payoff of  its centuries of effort. Because of the power of exponential growth, soon we will see the miraculous materialize before us.

A Singulatarian POV should inspire us to take a new look at these questions: What should today’s education be designed to best prepare children for the future? What will education in the future look like? What will be its aims? What is the organizational structure of public education that will have the greatest capacity to meet the challenges of the future?

John Kasich, Ohio’s new governor, has emphasized his goal of reforming Ohio’s educational system. (See: Kasich creates cabinet post for education.) The person charged with this big task is Bob Sommers — given the title, “Director of The Governors Office for 21st Century Education.” In the video (below), Mr. Sommers addresses a group of Ohio’s educational leaders.

Sommers’ answers to the question: “What is your vision of the future?”

• Technology will be integrated in such a way to personalize education via “mass customization.”
• Whole group classroom instruction — a teacher addressing an entire class — will be rare if nonexistent.
• Adult success will be judged in terms of student success.
• The use of technology and improved management will make education much more cost effective.

In the video Sommers indicates schools need goals “beyond math and reading,” He indicates that schools must do more to develop character, cultural competence, drive, creativity, persistence. I’d like to know more about Mr. Sommers’ views of school goals and how these goals should be measured, how teachers and schools could be held accountable.

Mr. Sommers has an impressive resume. He has worked over 30 years in every aspect of public education: teacher, board member, superintendent, charter school leader, etc. In the video he comes across as a sincere and thoughtful educator, a leader with a well developed point of view concerning how to improve public education.  One slide he used in the presentation:

Per pupil cost has risen sharply, but test results have stayed flat.

See handout: “Education that Gets Results: Giving Taxpayers Their Money’s Worth”

Some of his points:

1. We are saddled with a “legacy system” — one that cannot sustain itself — and we need a new system that focuses on students rather than adults.
2. We’ve played games with the accountability system — “Our accountability system is basically lying to us.” Regardless that Ohio shows an increase in the number of “excellent schools,” an increase in state assessment scores, the fact is, any third party assessment (ACT, NAEP, etc) of Ohio’s results is flat.
3. The biggest challenge is not the budget, not the stats — it is tradition. He quotes Henry Ford as saying that if he asked his customers they would have said they wanted “a faster horse.” Traditions keep us from creating the new generation of education.
4. Technology must be fully integrated, we must seek “mass customization.” We must put students in charge of their own learning. Technology should not be laid over the current system, but must be an integral part of a new system.
5. Putting a great teacher in charge is more important than the number of students in a class. Great teachers should be paid extremely well. The idea is to start with a system of bonuses for teachers, and to transition to a more comprehensive system.
6. Support innovation, stop failure. Rank schools on performance (75th out of 610, etc.) Even top schools are motivated to improve their ranking. Give parents takeover rights.
7. Invest in students. Put more money in classroom, less in bureaucracy
8. Expand choice. Increase EDChoice scholarships (vouchers); Remove the cap on charter schools; Eliminate auto transfer of collective bargaining on conversions
9. Create a digital friendly state. Give students a choice for digital instruction. Simplify and focus state educational technology leadership. Build a platform for Digital development by Ohio’s teachers

Questions to Mr. Sommers start in the video at 1:06:35.  The first question is the best:

What will the system look like when these changes are made. Please give us your vision.

Mr. Sommer’s response:

In broad strokes, First of all, We will not have uniformity in the educational process. Uniformity at the institutional is fundamentally counterintuitive to meeting the needs of individual students. There is no model student. Anytime we apply a uniform application (there is a problem)

A lot of education today would be like the doctor who, if you had a sore would prescribe penicillin. If you had a headache — penicillin. If a broken leg — penicillin. Nobody would think that was logical.

Here is the fascinating news, if we apply the right mechanisms to the right circumstances to keep them engaged, keep them excited (there is success) Children are fascinated with learning about the world. But what happens is that overtime as we apply institutional standardized instruction, we kill their interest. First thing — there would not be uniformity in the educational experience

Second,All adults will judge their success by their students success — not if they turn their paper work on time, not if they have best friends in the administration, not if they won some (bureaucratic) battle — they will be judged only by how well their students succeed. And when their students didn’t succeed, they would be energized to find a solution

Third, There will not be classrooms, with teachers doing what I am doing now (giving whole group instruction) presenting information. Whenever you see a classroom, adults or children, with one person leading the group — and test this out, and visit a good classroom, watch the kids — I guarantee you are lucky to get 30% of educational productivity in that setting. Most of the students are not engaged. They are idling, waiting to hear something relevant to their learning, or they are hopelessly confused. It is usually less than 20%.

A teacher in front of a class is fundamentally very unproductive. This design for education comes from years ago at the turn of the 20th century. At that time we didn’t have the knowledge we have today about brain theory, human motivation, technology. We are clinging to a practice that was required long ago, but, that today’s technology and today’s understanding doesn’t require us to cling to

Fourth, The last thing in this new system is educators not saying, “We have this problem and we need more money to solve it.” Money will be important at some level, but it will be a system where educators will say, “I’ve got to meet this performance target at this sustainable price point. — how do I go about organizing, using technology to actually at same time lower my cost to be a better value for taxpayers and, at the same time, serve students better.” At Butler, we called it the Kalmus ration — cost per successful student.