Mike Simpson uses Big Education Ape to amplify the voices of others. But in a recent post, he laid out his own capsule history of education disruption.
There’s a particular species of billionaire—let’s call them Homo Disrupticus—who wakes up every morning, sips a $47 adaptogenic mushroom latte, and asks themselves: “What ancient human institution can I turn into an app today?”
They’ve already conquered taxis (Uber), hotels (Airbnb), and the entire concept of “having friends over for dinner” (DoorDash). But there remained one final boss level in the game of late-stage capitalism: the public school teacher.
That 19th-century relic. That union-protected, pension-having, summer-vacation-enjoying dinosaur who insists on teaching all children—even the unprofitable ones—how to read.
How quaint. How inefficient. How ripe for disruption.
Welcome to 2026, where the chalkboard has been replaced by the chatbot, where “school choice” means choosing between Algorithm A and Algorithm B, and where the phrase “personalized learning” has been so thoroughly weaponized that it now means “your child, alone, staring at a screen for seven hours while a billionaire’s stock portfolio grows.”
This is the story of how we got here. Pour yourself a drink. You’ll need it.
ACT I: THE GOSPEL OF DISRUPTION (Or: How We Learned to Privatize Everything)
The Prophet Clayton and His Holy Text
In 2008, Clayton Christensen—Harvard Business School professor and patron saint of creative destruction—published Disrupting Class. The thesis was seductive in its simplicity: Public education is a “monopoly” suffering from “sustaining innovation” (incremental improvements). What it needs is “disruptive innovation” (radical, market-based transformation).
The book became the Bible of education reform. Venture capitalists clutched it to their chests. Charter school advocates quoted it like scripture. And somewhere in Silicon Valley, a 23-year-old Stanford dropout read it and thought: “I could build that. And I could make it profitable.”
The philosophy was elegant:
- Find the “non-consumers”: Students who are failed by the current system (dropouts, rural kids, special needs).
- Offer a “good enough” alternative: Online courses, adaptive software, AI tutors—cheaper and more scalable than human teachers.
- Move upmarket: Once the technology improves, it replaces the “overserved” mainstream.
- Collect the spoils: Public funding follows the student. The student follows the app. The app belongs to… well, you can guess.
It’s the same playbook that destroyed Blockbuster, Barnes & Noble, and every mom-and-pop taxi service. Except this time, the “product” being disrupted is your child’s cognitive development.
What could go wrong?