One Person Schoolhouse
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You play a role in the educational system. Either now or in the past, you attended school as a student. Maybe you have or had children in the school system. Perhaps you teach. The Certification-Based Education system has roles for you and others to play as well. Some roles will be familiar to you, some are new, and the rest are remakes of existing roles. Some roles may go away in the Certification-Based Education system. People in these roles interact to make the Certification-Based Education system a success.
Roles in the Certification-Based Education system fall in one of five categories. You might find yourself filling multiple roles in more than one category.
The Triad includes the critical roles that comprise the three supporting legs of the Certification-Based Education system.
An educator facilitates your learning of the material you need to know to pass an examination.
An enabler adds value to the Certification-Based Education system by helping you succeed.
People who study participants in the Certification-Based Education system are observers.
Government at multiple levels regulate the industry.
You, the employer, and the issuer of certifications comprise the Triad category.
The Triad roles support Certification-Based Education like a three-legged stool. If you remove any leg of the stool, it tips over. Similarly, if you, the employer, or the certification authority exit Certification-Based Education, the system collapses.
The Triad roles are critical to Certification-Based Education. No other component causes the collapse of the Certification-Based Education ecosystem by exiting.
You are the only student in the One Person Schoolhouse. And you require a means to prove your knowledge to other people to secure employment. You’ll take examinations to earn certifications after you graduate fifth grade. Over the years, you’ll earn an impressive collection of certifications.
You’ll prepare for the first set of certifications with students your own age after graduating fifth grade. You all need the same first certifications. As people in your group pass their initial certification exams, they’ll leave your study group for other study groups. From this point on you’ll travel your own path at your own pace.
Your state legislature will surely mandate you earn a collection of certifications that equate to a high school diploma. You’ll cross paths with other people about your age studying for the same certifications. The One Person Schoolhouse means you chart your unique path through your educational career, but it does not mean you must do so in isolation. You’ll probably study with other people preparing for the same certification examination at a facilitation center and socialize during breaks.
You can plan far in advance the order in which you get your state mandated certifications and set a target date for completion. You will probably race through certifications in areas you enjoy and take longer to pass examinations in subjects in which you struggle. But the sooner you pass these examinations, the sooner you “graduate high school”, so you find a good balance.
You decide whether to earn non-mandated certifications while still earning mandated certifications. If you have earned all the required mathematics certifications but still have language and history certifications, do you earn another mathematics certification before you complete all the mandated certifications? Or put all mathematics certifications on hold until you’ve “graduated”? Your call.
With your certification path planned, you’ll set your study schedule. What days do you study? What hours do you study? What days will you take for vacation and holidays? You can schedule your study times for when you are at your peak or maybe you’ll work around your job hours. Certification-Based Education teaches self-discipline as well as course material.
As you collect your certifications, you can seek employment as an intern or apprentice in a field of great interest to you. The Certification-Based Education system gives you the ability to enter the job market earlier, gaining experience that you can apply toward earning related certifications.
Over the years, you’ll change employers and even careers a few times. You’ll continue to earn certifications to improve your odds of getting the next job or promotion. Learning never ends, and you’ll be enrolled in the One Person Schoolhouse the rest of your life.
Employers cannot be removed from the Certification-Based Education system. The entire point of certification is proving your knowledge to a prospective employer. If you aren’t seeking employment or a promotion, the only reason to get certified in anything is personal satisfaction.
Certifications offer employers several valuable services.
The most obvious purpose of certifications is to eliminate unqualified job applicants. By listing specific certifications on the job board, the employer conveys to the job applicant its minimum expectations of that person. For the employer, this is a wonderful time saver.
An employer promoting from within may favor the candidate with certifications relating to the position to be filled. An employer that uses certifications to hire an external candidate would be expected to use certifications to choose when promoting its own employees.
Certifications give the employer the opportunity to offer apprenticeships. Employers use apprenticeships to bring in promising talent and guide them as they learn the business. With people completing their state-mandated certifications at younger ages, they’ll be looking for work experience but employers may not be ready to take them on full time. The apprenticeship program would use certifications to track the progress of each apprentice. Certifications provide the apprentice a clear path to status as a full employee.
Employers gain value from certifications. Certifications can be earned piecemeal over a lifetime. Certifications keep employees’ skills current. Contrast this to the degree program. For many, earning the degree is a stopping point in their educational career.
An independent organization with an impeccable reputation serves as the trusted third-party that vouches for you to any prospective employer or client. The issuer of certifications is a non-profit organization, a corporation, or a distributed ledger, not the government.
The Certification-Based Education system can support multiple issuers of certifications. Competition is preferred. You should have a choice of certification providers and certification providers need the incentive to improve their products.
An industry association could benefit certification providers by standardizing at least the certifications typically mandated by the various states. You should be able to take your Algebra I Part 1 certification with Company A, Algebra I Part 2 certification with Company B, and Algebra I Part 3 certification with Company A again. Perhaps you’re traveling and Company A lacks examination centers where you’re staying when you’re ready to take that second Algebra I examination.
The issuer of certifications is selling its integrity. You trust the issuer to present to you a fairly and competently administered examination covering the subject material. The certification issuer has two concerns with the person taking the test.
Payment keeps the organization in business. Cheating ruins the integrity of the organization. A employer that suspects job candidates are getting certifications from an organization through cheating will refuse to recognize certifications issued by that organization. That organization may never recover, and will inevitably fail.
Universities differentiate themselves by specializing or being elite or inexpensive. Certification issuers may differentiate themselves as well. Integrity is a core property, but difficulty can vary above a common floor. A certification too easily obtained is of no value, but a certification difficult to obtain makes the holder of that certification stand out. The Algebra I certifications from Company A may be known to be more difficult to obtain than those from Company B, and therefore will carry more weight in the marketplace.
Certification issuers may limit quantities of certifications to increase their value. If a certification issuer allows an unlimited number of people to sit for a test, but issues certifications only to the 100 highest scoring individuals, those 100 people are among the elite. These certification competitions will appeal to a certain segment of the population wishing to stand out to employers or clients.
Certifications covering course material typically associated with middle school, high school, and university are a wide-open market right now. Their applications are limited only by the imagination of the certification issuers and the demand for products in the market.
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The educator role is filled by a person who directly interacts with the learner with the intent to transfer knowledge. Educators continue to play a pivotal role in the Certification-Based Education system as facilitators and tutors, among other roles. The traditional classroom lecture is optional in the One Person Schoolhouse. Demand will drop as students explore other means of education, but there will always be people who prefer classroom-based education.
Teachers lead lessons in a set-schedule, regularly attended course spanning a limited number of classes. People are familiar with this format of education and many will continue attending classes even as they strive to attain certifications.
Classroom-based education offers the external discipline of having to be somewhere at a certain time with assignments that must be completed before the next session. This mode of learning will appeal to some people. It’s kind of like having the government withhold extra money from your paycheck because you cannot make yourself save it yourself through the year.
You are the One Person Schoolhouse. If traditional classroom-based education is how you learn best, attend classes. The Certification-Based Education system does not eliminate classroom-based education; it simply offers options to people who could learn better through different formats.
Teachers may be employed by communities that retain traditional school systems, private schools, or self-incorporated LLCs. A teacher popular with the students may see an opportunity to set up a One Teacher Schoolhouse.
A potential business in the One Person Schoolhouse world is hosting a venue in which numerous educators hold classroom sessions as part of a course with the intent to assist each attendee with passing a specific examination or just to learn material in general. You, as the person attending the classes, pay the teacher, who in turn rents the classroom from the venue operator. Each teacher independently manages a teaching business, much in the same manner as hair stylists renting a booth in a boutique.
With you and every other student following their own educational path, traditional set-schedule classroom education becomes rather inefficient. In response, communities will convert school buildings to educational facilitation centers. Each classroom becomes a facilitation room. Facilitators will manage educational activities in the room. A person studying for a certification will find a wealth of study materials in a room dedicated to facilitating your efforts. Each facilitation room will open in the early morning stay open late into the evening for the come-and-go convenience of anybody studying for a specific certification.
You are studying for an Algebra I examination. In the traditional school system, you’d attend a semester of classes and earn a grade when the semester ended. The semester ends at the same time for everybody, regardless of whether they know the material. With the Certification-Based Education system, you can take your Algebra I examinations when you are ready. You might learn at a pace faster or slower than the material is taught in a fix-length semester. You need an educational environment you can walk into on the first day you’re studying for the examination and leave the day you get your certification.
You need a facilitation center with a room dedicated to learning Algebra I, staffed by facilitators who help you find the materials you need to prepare for the examination and help you understand complex concepts on an as-needed basis.
The facilitator stands ready to assist any person who comes into the facilitation room. The facilitation room has books, videos, computer games, practice tests, and any other resources that would benefit a person seeking to learn the material required to pass an examination. The facilitator answers questions, orders new educational material, and does pretty much anything necessary to expedite the education of the people who study in that room.
The facilitator is a specialist in the subject material while in that room. A facilitator may enjoy helping people in a single facilitation room or prefer the variety of covering multiple rooms on a rotating schedule. A mathematics facilitator may cover the Algebra room on Monday, Geometry room on Tuesday, and so on with each day of the week.
Facilitators work in converted school buildings for the community or in buildings hosted by private corporations. Due to the nature of the learning, the facilitation room can be open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, if the demand for the product exists. Facilitators may appreciate the ability to sleep in late and host the late shift just as much as their former students enjoy sleeping in!
Tutors serve an important role in the One Person Schoolhouse. People who education for a fee (usually) can earn extra money or potentially go full-time. Parents hire tutors to assist their children learn math or how to play the piano. Tutors are not new to the educational ecosystem but they do gain a larger role in the Certification-Based Education system as individuals increasingly self-educate.
Tutors can donate their time in the Certification-Based Education system. The need exists for direct one-on-one lessons. Not everybody who wishes to leave public education can afford the materials or lessons of the private sector.
Facilitation centers offer the perfect venue for tutors to set up shop. Facilitators cannot dedicate their uninterrupted focus to a single individual for an hour or two when they are managing a room full of learners. Just as a hair stylist rents a booth at a boutique, a tutor may rent a table, cubicle, or small room in the facilitation center.
In states that fund the total education of the student tutors can earn money through state vouchers. An effective tutor can fill an entire day with clients and have a reliable revenue stream despite the high turnover of clients.
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Enablers make Certification-Based Education flow smoothly with the goods and services they add to the ecosystem.
Businesses will contract with multiple issuers of certifications to proctor examinations for them. This happens today, so this is less a prediction and more a statement.
With so many potential customers, you should see proctoring offices in every town and maybe neighborhood. Ideally, you should be able to make an appointment as soon as a few days out, not weeks or months.
The proctoring business offers a room with computer stations and noise-cancelling headphones. You’ll sit at a station, verify your identity, agree to the terms and conditions, and finally take your test. Following completion of the test, maybe you take a survey. At this point, you get your test results and then you’re on your way.
Businesses may establish a franchise system for proctors. You’ll take many certifications, and the process should be routine and familiar. You’ll be more comfortable.
The proctor must be as trustworthy as the organization or corporation issuing the certification. If the proctor allows people to cheat, it will lose faith with the issuers of certifications and they’ll cancel their contracts. The proctor will be out of business.
The people who leave the Grade-Based Education system include those struggling financially to pay for an education. Perhaps these people are home-schooling or attending a micro-school or a private school. Many parents with children in private schools get financial support from their state government. Others scrimp and save to cover the costs, but it’s important to them to educate their children outside the public schools. As people move to the One Person Schoolhouse, where they take ownership of their personal education, many of them will benefit from charitable donations of money, time, and resources.
Education costs money, no matter what system you implement to prove your knowledge. Where the state government aid ends, donations begin.
Charities and individual donors have an important role in the Certification-Based Education ecosystem. While the sitting fee for each examination is the only fixed cost in the Certification-Based Education system, it won’t be the only cost. Other costs would include all the typical school supplies consumed by the average student, including pencils, pens, paper, calculators, computers, transportation, software, and so on. Charities and individual donors relieve the stress of families needing supplies by stepping into the role of provider of these supplies.
As people exit public schools in favor of the One Person Schoolhouse, they’ll need to furnish their personal educational space. Government cannot offer the amenities that make the educational experience more pleasant. People can “adopt” students to assist them in their educational careers. This is nothing new. You probably already know an older person who donates time, money, and resources to a disadvantaged child. You might have been that disadvantaged child yourself at one time.
The One Person Schoolhouse is not designed or intended to get everybody out of public education just to fend for themselves. For all its faults, public education does have the advantage of allowing school administrators to identify children needing special assistance. Some of that responsibility for assisting those who struggle to succeed belongs to the community, which is you. The One Person Schoolhouse moves the responsibility for education from the government to the individual, and that individual sometimes needs assistance.
Have you ever met somebody gifted with the ability to make a very complex idea easy to understand? Maybe that person also makes learning those complex ideas fun and entertaining. That person is a natural for renting a venue and selling tickets for the “performance”. Some teachers and college professors are so good, people not even enrolled in their courses attend classes.
In the One Person Schoolhouse, you can attend lectures hosted by people with whom you would otherwise never cross paths. These people explain ideas in a way that makes them clearer, keep your interest while discussing otherwise boring content, and advance your education a great deal in a very short time.
The market for lecturers may be small, but there will be a market in the One Person Schoolhouse.
A business or organization owning an auditorium fills the role of Venue for Speaking in the One Person Schoolhouse. A movie theater, a church, your school, a community theater, a concert hall, and a wedding hall are great examples of venues where a person may speak to an audience. The venue owner may earn rental fees from individuals or groups seeking to host a lecture or demonstration of a concept you need to know for a specific certification examination.
A facilitation center (formerly a school) would have an auditorium and it’s a natural venue for scheduling special speakers given that it is a central hub of educational activity.
Who would want to rent a speaking venue in an educational center? Maybe this idea would appeal to your favorite math teacher from high school who absolutely loves the lecture part of the job and none of the rest.
People have a lot to offer and sometimes the lecture format is the best format for them to help you. People attend conferences all the time for all different industries with speakers on thousands of topics. The market exists; it’s just a new way to use an old tool.
Schools have laboratories for scientific learning, for subjects such as biology and chemistry. In the One Person Schoolhouse, where schools are now learning facilitation centers, the labs are still there. They’ll get new life in the One Person Schoolhouse.
Those rooms can be converted to come-and-go learning centers if the facilitation center has the staffing necessary to assist multiple individuals or teams working on a variety of experiments. A more likely possibility is that the facilitators schedule sessions in which they offer structured lessons so they can maintain a safe working environment. Not everything in the One Person Schoolhouse is entirely on-demand, and scientific laboratories with strict safety protocols present a great example of scheduled events.
A private organization or a converted school building may offer time-boxed sessions in which individuals or teams may reserve a workspace to get hands-on experience in preparation for an examination. The facilitators schedule a block of time for all the people studying for Certification A and another block of time for people studying for Certification B. In this way, they limit the variety of work being done and the amount of oversight necessary. The facilitators know the experience level of all the clients in the room and prepare the room accordingly.
The venues for science can be open throughout the day and well into the evening. The school system that previously only used its labs for a few hours a day up to five days a week may now have them operational for fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.
Laboratories play a role in the Certification-Based Education system. Certification examinations may involve hands-on demonstrations of ability. Perhaps the person taking the examination is instructed to create a certain chemical compound and must choose not only the ingredients, but also measure the correct amounts and mix them in the proper order. Not all certification tests are computer-based question and answer!
The funding for education may include vouchers for laboratory time for students preparing to take state-mandated science-related certification examinations. The vouchers can be used in the local educational facilitation center or a private facility. Perhaps an entrepreneur starts a business with affiliates nationwide offering access to modern laboratory equipment for people preparing for all levels of certifications.
Textbooks are the staple diet of the education system. Almost every course has one. Or two. Either the school system loaned you a text book or you rented it or you bought it with the hope you could sell it back at the end of the semester. The educational world is a large market for books on a variety of subjects. People or companies who author these books have an endless supply of potential customers in the One Person Schoolhouse.
As more people consume material they choose for themselves, the market will respond with more material. Some of that material will be of questionable value and some will be spectacular in how it explains the subject matter. The rating system on Amazon and reviews from blogs will help you find the best resources for your study.
If you have a better way to teach a subject, and the written word is your chosen avenue for doing so, you can write a book and publish it to Amazon and a variety of other online sellers. You can earn extra income if you know how to make learning easier for your readers.
In the Grade-Based Education system, as an author of textbooks you’re limited to the secondary market as the school systems typically order textbooks from established publishers. The market opens up as people in the One Person Schoolhouse seek textbooks that fit their personal preferences.
The market for teaching via streaming video is massive and it’s growing. You have an opportunity to earn extra income or even replace your paycheck by publishing educational videos online. As the learner, you have a vast library of videos available to you, and many of them you may watch for free.
Videos have the potential to completely disrupt classroom education for a variety of subjects. For example, a library of 300 well-designed hour-long videos covering the various aspects of Algebra I will more than cover the material presented in an entire semester course. And if feedback from the viewing audience uncovers a gap in the content or a failure to adequately convey an idea, the video can be updated. If a large percentage of students can learn all they need from this one video series to pass an examination, why pay a person to teach 30 students at a time, several times a day, year after year?
Some people will always prefer the classroom, but many other just want to learn the material, pass the exam, and move on. You wouldn’t have to watch all 300 hours of video to pass the examination, but if watching the videos sparks a desire to learn more, you’ve got it all right there.
YouTube offers you a variety of ways to earn money through the advertising to people watching your video and other means. You can earn spending money for a good video or make video production your full-time job, if you can generate enough popular content. YouTube is not the only video streaming service, but it dominates the market.
You can sell access to videos on your own website to subscribers. Be aware you are competing against free content on YouTube and elsewhere, so your content needs to be superior.
The educational market for software in the One Person Schoolhouse is vast. Consider the platforms. You have the Internet, Android phones, Apple phones, Windows desktop PCs, and now virtual reality headsets. Teams of software developers seeking to publish content will have all the people looking to pass certification examinations.
Software has unimaginable potential for supporting people studying to pass a certification. Teams of people who write software will continue to find ways to assist in the learning process.
One of the most relevant software tools is the practice test. Before sitting for the actual certification examination, you might want to consistently pass realistic practice exams. These practice exams operate on a software platform that allows for the display of a variety of content.
Games offer challenges while attempting to boost knowledge of the material. Even a simple game of solving math equations before the buzzer sounds makes a monotonous topic exciting. Turn this into a national competition using a website for those motivated by competition.
Software developers will be in high demand (until AI renders every last one of them obsolete, but we have a few years before then) as millions of people take ownership of their own education.
The cost to publish a website is negligible. Anybody can do it. A domain name and website hosting service can be had for a small annual sum. You can find free website hosting with limited website capabilities and maybe some external advertising. And you can post your own educational content. You would be an independent educational website publisher.
If you have an idea, you can publish that idea on a website. Maybe you want to help students working toward a certification in the structure of the English language. You can dedicate all the content on your website to this topic. You can have static pages, blog pages, discussion boards, comments, videos, and downloadable PDF files on your website.
If this sounds preposterous, remember that Khan Academy started as one person just wanting to help some kids he knew with their homework.
On your website, you can continue to refine your content to improve the value of that content for your website visitors. You can join Amazon as an affiliate to help fund the site, as for donations, or just fund it as a service to the world.
Donating your time to a web site has merit, provided your site adds value to the lives of your visitors.
Perhaps you can earn some certifications for website design and development along the way!
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The Certification-Based Education system provides people in the observer roles a wealth of statistical information. And rather than relying on responses to surveys or standardized tests, observers can gather hard data based on actual test success rates.
Public schools and some private schools participate in standardized testing programs. The tests offer a comparison of schools and build a history of records going back decades. Statisticians dig deep into this data to uncover trends in education. Schools sometimes use the results of standardized testing to show they perform at a higher level than other schools surrounding them. There are no standardized tests in the Certification-Based Education system.
Certification-Based Education is purely driven by examinations taken in an effort to earn a certification. In a way, this is the most accurate standardized test a statistician could request. The person taking the test is motivated, virtually eliminating the tests returned with the little circles filled out in the shape of a cartoon character. But it’s more than that.
Certification issuing organizations can track statistical information about the people taking their tests. They need that information to improve their marketing and can sell that data for more income.
The statistical data collected includes the usual content: home ZIP code, age, sex, ethnicity, and other data statisticians love. Also collected is data on when the person started and ended the test, where they took the test, what other tests has that person taken, how many attempts does this person take to pass a test, and so on.
With that data, the statisticians can track trends overall, locally, within subsets of the whole, and more. Are people in this state passing at a higher rate than residents of that state? Do people who take the exam in the morning more or less likely to pass than people who take the exam in the afternoon? Are teenagers of a specific ethnicity in this one city getting certified in this specific subject more or less than were certified last year? Are the scores of those who passed the exam increasing or decreasing?
The reports issued by scholastic statisticians will help government direct resources to help improve certification coverage in low-performing areas. They might also help you.
Important information you’ll want to know is the age a person typically takes a state-mandated certification examination. You’ll use this information to determine whether your pace is too slow or if you’re well ahead of the pack. You are free to set your own pace, but if you are falling behind simply due to lack of self-discipline, knowing you are falling behind may be the best motivator to work harder and smarter. Comparing your progress to that of your peers is the closest thing to grade levels in the Certification-Based Education system.
People who follow market trends can track the popularity of certifications related to specific industries to see how many people are entering or leaving those sectors.
Certification-issuing organizations will introduce new industry-specific certifications to meet demand. As certifications become the norm in American society, organizations will add to the number of possible certifications available to you. People who watch for trends in the job market or specific industries will monitor the certification industry for changes such as these.
Businesses will eventually list the required and preferred certifications in each job listing. This happens already in the software development industry, among others. With the expansion of certifications into the educational world, employers will be able to narrow their pool potential job applicants by expanding the scope of certifications desired. People who follow trends in the marketplace can capture the list of certifications to better understand the responsibilities of the jobs being filled.
You’ll benefit, if you read the reports issued by the market trend followers. You’ll see demand rise for a certification, so you’ll maybe get it next. You’ll see demand for certifications in your industry drop, and you’ll know it’s time to research careers in other industries. You can see what certifications people in positions above yours hold, and can earn them before the next position opens up.
Certifications are solid indicators of what the market values and where various industries are going.
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Government regulations tend to follow new industries. Certifications probably won’t be exempt.
Your state legislature sets the agenda for public school systems in your state. You can expect it will do the same for the Certification-Based Education system. There will be a time before which the state legislature will act while certifications become generally accepted.
Overall, you can expect your state legislature to take one of three paths.
It could ignore Certification-Based Education, leaving people free to earn certifications if they wish. This would be similar to leaving it up to parents as to what to teach their home-schooled children. If you see earning the certification as a benefit, you get the certification, even if the issuer of the certificate is unaccredited by any of the usual organizations. Businesses choose whether to accept it in place of a diploma or degree.
It could attempt to ban Certification-Based Education in a manner similar to the way some governments attempted to ban Lyft and Uber in defense of the taxi service providers. States with a heavy teacher’s union presence are the most likely candidates for this tactic. This strategy has limited effectiveness, especially if the issuer of certificates is based out-of-state. More so if the issuer of certificates is a blockchain-style distributed organization without leadership.
It could accept Certification-Based Education as inevitable, and treat it no differently from the traditional school system in how it mandates courses. The legislature could act early, before certifications become widespread, and write legislation that defines the certifications it expects organizations to offer its secondary school students. Your state legislature could also direct state universities to begin supporting certifications as an alternative proof of education.
State legislatures can expect heated debate over how to deal with this alternative to the public school system. Many people are deeply invested in the public school system. Other people are done with it, and want out. The public school system requires a high percentage of children to attend or it becomes uneconomical as the cost per student soars.
The time for state legislatures to be proactive is now. Schools are the most efficient means of feeding children because they are all in one place. What is the fall-back to this plan as people leave schools to pursue their own educational paths? Will people getting certifications share access to lab rooms with people in traditional classroom settings? There will be a period of time with two educational systems.
The federal government grants huge sums of money to local school systems. Some school districts employ people for no other reason than to get grants and money from other federal programs. The federal government in turn uses that money as leverage to force local school systems to act as it sees fit. In the Certification-Based Education system, there’s no school to which to grant money.
The One Person Schoolhouse involves an individual choosing to set his or her own path in education. If that person does so outside the public school system, the federal government has little leverage to bring to bear.
If the person chooses to earn a certification, the federal government can likely find a way to regulate that transaction. It probably involves you and a corporation based in another state, and the federal government regulates interstate commerce.
However, the Certification-Based Education system greatly weakens the federal government’s ability to influence how, where, when, and by whom you are educated. If you intended to get a certification, you can order books off Amazon, what videos on YouTube, chat with others studying for the examination, and otherwise make use of the incredible amount of educational material available to you. The federal government cannot prevent you from doing that without basically banning all education outside a public school. That won’t happen.
The Department of Education simply has no role in the Certification-Based Education unless the federal government regulates corporations or organizations that issue certifications.
Even regulations have no effect over a blockchain-based system, if somebody builds such a system. A system in which no person, organization, or corporation controls the certification system cannot be regulated or banned. This can be accomplished by the use of digital contracts and volunteers supplying questions for certification examinations and performing other support tasks.
Technology is outrunning government in some cases. Certification-Based Education potentially could be managed entirely on a distributed network. Such effort is a long time off, but it’s not impossible.
So, the federal government is both powerful and yet powerless to deal with Certification-Based Education. The best-case scenario is the Department of Education, recognizing the One Person Schoolhouse will happen, begins exploring ways to deliver meals to the truly needy children and support other programs dependent on a centrally located population.
Your community, town, or city runs your public school system. Changes are coming.
Your local government has much work ahead of it. The exodus from public schools may seem something happening in distant cities or other states, but eventually, it will affect your region. People leaving your local public school may not reflect poorly on the school system itself; there’s just a better option available to them now.
Your local community owns a fleet of school buses, several educational buildings, sports fields and equipment, a performance stage, and a music program. Maybe there’s also a technology program with a significant investment in equipment. Does all that just go away? Certainly not!
As people leave the public schools for the One Person Schoolhouse and choose to earn certifications in place of a diploma, at some point the local government needs to flip the schools from classroom-based education to certification-based education. The classrooms become facilitation rooms.
The local government, if it fully supports the facilitation-center model, can keep the facilitation centers open seven days a week, from early morning to late evening, to accommodate a variety of study schedules. These buildings will become a community center of sorts. People in smaller communities will study together, even if studying for different certifications. A general foyer area for socializing outside of facilitation rooms will see much traffic.
This will be a great upheaval and require time before activities settle down to a routine. It’s to be expected.
The local government must answer some basic questions. Do the buses keep running on the same schedule or do they circle a route daily as a city-wide service? How to secure the buildings if they are treated more as a community center? How to budget for this new arrangement?
Then we turn to the other programs. What to do with the sports program? Will the performing arts department disband? No. People want these programs. These programs provide value to the community. But they are going to change, mostly in how they are administered. Click here for an in-depth discussion of extra-curricular activities in the One Person Schoolhouse era.
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