Computers have failed to improve education. That's because no one's gotten disruptive with technology.

Why do U.S. public schools struggle so to improve? Everyone has a theory. Is it a lack of money? Maybe, but the U.S. spends more per student （$9,000） on K-12 public education than all but a few countries and still lags in results. Also blamed: student disaffection, parental neglect, intransigent teachers unions and flaws in the way we measure performance.

Elements of all these play a part, but the underlying problem is deeper. It comes down to the fact that scholls aren't motivating the children, and they are unmotivating because they are far too monolithic and standardized. The system doesn't account for the fact that every student learns in a different way. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner first posited the theory of "multiple intelligences" in the 1980s, and it has gained wide acceptance since. His classification system now numbers eight kinds of intelligence. You cannot compare the wiring of Michael Jordan's brain （a kinesthetic intelligence） to that of a Frank Lloyd Wright （spatial） or a Walt Whitman （linguistic）. Every student has a different blend of intelligence and within that a different learning style and pace.

In the 1800s teachers in a one-room schoolhouse would have no problem customizing their approach to each student. But at the turn of the 19th century, as schools filled up with 30 or 40 kids in a room, standardization became the norm. Schools turned into factories and ever since have resisted all efforts to break from a monolithic batch-process approach. Students who succeed today do so because their intelligence happens to match the dominant paradigm in use in a particular classroom, or they've somehow found a way to adapt to it.

If the goal is to educate all students so they have an all-American shot at realizing their dreams, we must find a way to disrupt the monolithic classroom and move toward a student-centric model. The way to get there is with computer-based learning. Technology offers students the ability to learn in ways that match their intelligence types in the places and at the pace they prefer. The hardware exists. The software is emerging. Now all that has to change is the system around it. Change will face mighty resistance, but we predict it will happen in the next ten years.

Skeptics will say the U.S. has spent $60 billion putting computers into schools over the last two decades and has still failed to transform the classroom-save possibly to increase costs and draw resources away from other school priorities. This should come as no surprise. Schools have done what virtually every organization does when implementing an innovation: cram it into its existing operating model to sustain what it already does. Merrill Lynch developed a solid online trading system to be used by customers. It could have fended off the E-Trades of the world. But all Merrill did was give the new system to its army of brokers so they could handle existing clients better. It didn't transform anything. This is perfectly predictable, perfectly logical-and perfectly wrong.

The way to implement an innovation so it will transform an organization is to implement it disruptively. That means not attaching it to the existing paradigm and serving existing customers but targeting those not being served or not buying what's served, people we call nonconsumers. That way, all the new approach has to do is be better than a nonexistent alternative.

Disruptive innovations tend to be simpler and more affordable than existing products. This allows them to take root in undemanding applications within a new market or arena of competition. They start to handle more complicated problems, and then they take over and supplant the old way of doing things. Sony chose to sell its tinny little transistor radio to teenagers who had never had a radio because they couldn't afford a tabletop RCA model. Bit by bit, that radio improved until, at some point, it became a superior alternative. Japanese car companies did this to Detroit. Nucor's mini mills did it to U.S. Steel. Google started out with ads from bicycle repair shops.

Computer-based learning is a radar blip now but is moving up the adoption curve we've seen in many industries （see chart below）. Enrollments in state-accredited online courses went from 45,000 in 2000 to roughly 1 million today. That accounts for 1% of all courses, but we estimate that, given a looming shortage of teachers and widespread state budget crises, online learning will continue to gain market share until, by 2019, it surpasses live instruction.

There are many areas of nonconsumption within schools where this is already taking place. One is Advanced Placement classes, those college-level courses offered to high school students. Schools offer only a fraction of the 34 courses for which AP exams are available. One-third of high school students attend schools that make no advanced courses available at all, according to a 2007 Department of Education report.

Other pockets of nonconsumption include rural or small schools that are unable to offer breadth; prekindergarten courses; remedial courses students must take to graduate; and homeschooling, the choice for an estimated 2 million students today.

As online classes improve with better video and social networking tools, they can get more customized and engaging. Costs should fall. Already it costs less to educate a student online （$200 to $600 per course） than it does in a classroom （$600）.

Plenty of companies have sprung up around online learning. Apex Learning, started by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, started out by offering online AP courses that schools couldn't afford to offer. In the 2003–04 school year it enrolled 8,400 students. Last year that number was 30,200.

A professor at Brigham Young University created the Virtual ChemLab in 2003, and it now serves 150,000 high school chemistry students across the country. The professor took 2,500 photos and 220 videos and got videogame designers to create a simulated laboratory to allow students to do online many of the same things they would do with real Bunsen burners. While virtual labs aren't as good as real ones, they are better than the alternative, which is nothing.

A group of 50 Minnesota teachers laid off from rural schools because of declining enrollments banded together in 2004 to start an online charter school called Blue Sky. They each have the same number of students as they did before （150）, but the teachers describe their bond with each student as far stronger and more nuanced. The students call or e-mail at all hours because they are taking courses at all hours. Online, each student is an individual. Even children who were formerly behavior problems in school seem to have shaped up. It's hard to be a behavior problem in a class of one.

电脑并没有改善学习，那是因为没有人被教会这种颠覆性技术。

究竟为什么美国的公立学校要这么努力来变得更好？他们各自都有自己的理由。是缺乏资金吗？也许吧，但是美国在从幼儿园到12年级的儿童教育上花在每个学生上的钱（9000美元）要比除了几个国家的要多得多，结果仍然是滞后的。人们开始指责：学生的叛离、家长的忽视、顽固的教工联，还有衡量绩效方法的缺陷。

所有这些因素都占了一部分的原因，但是根本的问题是更深层次的。它归结为一个事实，即学校没有去激励孩子们，他们之所以没有去激励是因为他们都过于统一和标准化了。这个系统没有证实每一个学生的学习方法都存在差异性这一事实。哈佛的心理学家哈沃德·加德纳在二十世纪八十年代首次提出了"多元智能理论",并且至今已得到了广泛的接受。现在他的分类系统将智力分为八个阶段。你不能将迈克尔·乔丹（擅长动觉智力）的大脑和弗兰克·劳埃德·怀特（擅长空间智力）的大脑或是沃尔特·惠特曼的（擅长语言的）来进行比较。每个学生有一个不同的混合的智力类型，其中是不同的学习和节奏型。

19世纪老师们都在单室学校授课，这样也不存在问题，老师可以将他们的方法个性化地传授给各个学生。但是在19世纪交替之际，因为学校里每个教室有30或40个孩子，标准化就成了王道。学校变成了工厂，并从此一直抵制一切妄想打破这一统一批"处理"做法的努力。今天取得成功的学生们之所以能够成功是因为他们的智力模型碰巧和在这个特定教室里使用的优势范例相匹配，或者是因为他们已经在某种程度上适应了它。

如果学校的目标是教育好所有的学生，那么他们应该尝试去发现他们所有人的梦想，我们必须要找到一种打破统一的教学，把注意力放在以学生为中心的模式上的方法。实现这个方法要配合以计算机为基础的学习。计算机技术提供给了学生学习的能力--通过在这里寻找符合他们智力类型的和适合他们学习节奏的方式。硬件有了。软件正在开发。总之现在需要改变的是连接它们的系统。变化将面临强大的阻力，但我们预测这将在未来的10年内发生。

对此持怀疑观点的人会说，美国已经花费了600亿美元在过去20年里把电脑带进了学校，并且仍然没有改变这种课堂教学--尽可能节俭以防可能增加的成本、与其他学校的一度优势的方面也拉开了距离。这不应感到惊讶。学校已经做了几乎每一个组织在实施一项革新时都会做的：将它填补到其现有的教学模式，以保持之前的措施。美林公司开发了一项供客户使用的可靠的网上交易系统。它能取代全球的电子贸易。但是美林所做的一切只是将新系统投放到掮客队伍中，这样他们可以更好地处理现有的客户。它并没有改变任何东西。表面上如此完美地预期、完美地合乎常理--但它却是一个彻彻底底地错误。

用这样的方法实施革新，实施起来会是组织遭到颠覆。那意味着不重视现有的模式和服务于现有的顾客，反而把那些没有被给予服务的或没有购买服务的人--我们称之为"非消费群"作为目标。这样一来，所有的新方法要做的就是实现比没有选择余地时做得更好。

颠覆性创新往往是轻而易举而又更比现有的产品花费更低。这使他们能够扎根于要求不高的应用的一个新的市场或竞争性的领域。他们开始处理更复杂的问题，然后他们接管并取代旧的处事方式。索尼选择了针对从没有过收音机的青少年全体出售其迷你型的晶体管收音机，因为他们买不起台式的RCA.一点一点的，收音机也不断改进，最终，不知什么时候，它就成了不二的选择。日本的汽车对底特律也是用同样的手法；纽克的小厂成了现在的纽克钢铁公司；谷歌从以前的自行车修理厂变成了现在的广告巨头。

以计算机为基础的学习现在是雷达上的一点，但是我们能够看见在多个行业中，它正沿着曲线不断向上（见下表）.国家认可的在线课程的学员从2000年的4万5千人猛增到今天的大约100万。现在高中生里占有1%,但我们估计，由于教师短缺情况的出现和广泛的国家预算危机，网上学习将继续获得市场份额，到2019年，将有超过50%的课程在网上教授。

包括学校在内的许多非消费领域，这已经开始了。其中之一是跨级班，这些大学水平的课程提供给高中学生。学校只提供一小部分足以应对美联社考试的34个课程。根据2007年教育部门的报告，有1/3的中学生参加网上课堂，这也使得没有什么高级课程可供选用。

其他零星的非消费团体包括农村的或规模小的学校，他们无法提供广泛的、学龄前的课程；学生毕业需要的补习课程；今天有大约200万的学生会选择家庭学校。

随着在线课程的改善--有了更好的视频和社交网络工具，他们可以得到更符合自身要求和吸引人的服务。花销也降下来了。学生在线接受教育的花费（每堂课200--600美元）要低于在教室上课的花费（600美元）.

大量的公司也迅速发展了在线学习。由微软联合创始人保罗艾伦始创的远程教学，开始时是通过提供学校不能提供的在线课程。在2003--2004学年，招收了有8400名学生，去年是30200人。

2003年，杨百翰大学的一位教授创建了虚拟化学实验室，全国范围内现有15万高中化学学生。该教授提供了2500张图片和220个视频，并请游戏设计师建立了一个模拟实验，可让学生用真的本生灯操做相同的实验。虽然虚拟实验室不如真实的，但是有总比没有好。

因为农村学校生源的持续流失，明尼苏达州的一群老师共50人下岗了，他们在2004年联合起来在创建了一所网上学校--蓝天。他们每人有和以前相同的学生数（150人）,但是他们坦言自己对每个学生付出的远远要更多更细致。学生们随时都会打电话或是发邮件因为他们接受的是随时授课。在网上，每一个学生都是单独的个体。即使孩子们以前在学校里是有行为问题似乎已经定型了。一个人的班级很难会有什么行为问题了。