"The rate of technological innovation is getting faster," says Toby Richards, Microsoft's director of higher education, and traditional educational institutions can't keep up.
The religious aspects of the educational system can't be abolished; but they need to be brought in line with contemporary realities.
While much of our society encourages what he describes as "chest-thumping behavior" and humiliation of opponents, "if our educational system can't counteract that, we're in trouble," he says.
But the jump in educational achievement can't be completely attributed to the current economy; it follows an ongoing trend.
Union apologists invidiously hint that the real problem is that poor kids make poor students that given the financial and cultural poverty of their households, the students' miserable educational achievements can't be blamed on the schools.
The key is to find a way to present material in a way that students want to consume it, and as they're increasingly gobbling up entertainment material that is interactive, social, and pushed to them through their online networks, there's no reason educational platforms can't steal some of that functionality.
The educational figleaf can't disguise the ratings greed.
Our educational system can't be expected to actually meet their needs--they need to meet the system's needs.
Parents' educational status: Can't write and read, can write and read, primary school (1-8th), secondary school (9-12th), and Higher education.
"If there's a training video or an educational video, you can't touch the content of that in order to make it accessible to a blind person," he said.
