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What happens to the people who make their livings from teaching, when their jobs are replaced by online courses available for free? All we need is one superb remedial algebra course that can be effectively delivered online and, theoretically, the demand for a zillion remedial algebra courses taught at a zillion community colleges suddenly drops off a cliff. Ask the music business what happens when you can get good stuff for free instead of paying for crap. Daily newspaper journalists learned a similar lesson all too well over the past two decades. The Associated Press business model — licensing the same story to multiple outlets, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense once a single news outlet puts that AP story online for free.

My own daughter is a freshman at a U.C. campus, and has already experienced lectures attended by more than 500 students with sections led by teaching assistants who are utterly uninterested in doing their job. For dollar paid, the value received is questionable, and whenever that kind of situation exists, the status quo is ripe for disruption. (It’s also worth noting, perhaps, that over 60,000 students applied for spots in a freshman class that ended up enrolling only 4,500 applicants, a sign, I think, that the brick-and-mortar university is in no imminent danger of going the way of the dinosaur.)

Education, I’d argue, has always been the most likely sector of society to get transformed by the Internet, because the thing the Internet does better than anything else is distribute information.

When it comes to high school, both agreed that the current model is outdated. As Khan put it, "Kids get promoted because they were in a chair for four years." Duncan called it a "19th century model" and "neanderthal." Instead, they suggested a competency-based model for promotion through grades rather than one that is time-based. In terms of content and standards, Duncan suggested adding subjects such as computer science, foreign language and financial literacy to the core curriculum. He adamantly defended the Common Core standards as a way for the U.S. to remain competitive globally and ensure requirements don't get dumbed down "to make politicians look good."

Now, I’m an old English professor who taught the Joyce course here at Madison two years ago,” he says. “The idea that you can’t understand Joyce unless you take it from Reilly three hours a week — that we faculty own the knowledge and anyone who’s going to be well educated has to get it from us — the world has changed so much that that’s no longer true.”

Technology will never replace the teacher, but technology necessitates that educators redefine our concept of teaching and learning in an era where anyone with Internet can teach and learn. Many will benefit from these readily accessible videos, but videos can only go so far.

Van Meter was one of the first schools in the state to adopt the one-to-one computer program for its students last year. Since then, the school has become a model for the program for schools across the country.

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education, here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs to wrestle with: Are we going to applaud, push or even permit our schools (including most of the private ones) to continue the safe but ultimately doomed strategy of churning out predictable, testable and mediocre factory-workers?