This is an illustration of the glacial pace of change in education. In the 70s even before the advent to the PC, there were those who argued for competency-based, rather than norm-based style of education. Now with computers to take care of the tracking, testing, and organizing tasks, why would anyone want to do anything else? Think about how the teacher in our current system is a step-down device like the QWERTY keyboard. The aim is too slow down the fast ones and make everyone huddle in the middle. That was because there weren’t enough books and reading material then. What is our reason now?

The disruptive idea is called “competency-based education,” and it’s gaining ground in the higher education world. A small handful of universities, such as Southern New Hampshire University, Northern Arizona University, and Western Governors University, are at the vanguard of this new model. The concept got a major endorsement in March when the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter to encourage schools to apply for accreditation for these experimental programs.