> "when I say "traditional education", I'm referring to the liberal arts college model"

Yes. My response concerns the 'this is intended to be different' on the first slide, which grates because it's a blanket statement. Had it added 'different from a liberal arts education' or 'different from what most think of college' then I would not react as strongly.

> 66% of high school graduates enroll in college within a year

Not all of those enter a liberal arts school. That 66% is those 'who enroll in 2- or 4-year colleges in the fall immediately after completing high school'. 23.8% are in 2-year colleges and 42.1 are in 4-year colleges. (See http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_302.10.as... ). Concerning the 2-year colleges, and quoting from http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2014-03-10/features/os-f... .

> A.S. programs are different in that they require students to immediately specialize in a limited number of high-demand fields. They train in areas such as nursing, law-enforcement administration, media design and fire-science technology.

Certainly some of them are using a 2 year program as a stepping stone for a 4 year program. But college also includes religious colleges, culinary college, .. and looking around, it also includes the Aerosim Flight Academy in Florida. Which is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, which is for schools that are 'predominantly organized to educate students for occupational, trade and technical careers, and institutions that offer programs via distance education'. That is, it's definitely not a liberal arts college.

So while 66% is correct, my question for you is 1) how many of those are going to something other than a 'traditional' liberal arts college, and 2) why focus on the differences to a liberal arts college, which is the most dissimilar to your proposal, instead of the more similar technical and vocational colleges?

Regarding 'standardized tests', that definition you linked to goes on to say 'the term is primarily associated with large-scale tests administered to sizeable populations of students, such as a multiple-choice test given to all the eighth-grade public-school students in a particular state, for example'. Your interpretation seems to be that just about any test is a standardized test, so long as there is a consistent grading scheme and more than one person being tested. Why not just call that a 'test', and leave 'standardized test' for its primary association?

On the other hand, if you call teacher developed one-off tests for a given classroom a 'standardized test' then I see no inherent problem with that. Just bear in mind that you want to replace standardized tests with standardized external advisers. Unless the external people are free to do whatever they want, they are being held to some standard, yes? Which is why they will get some (standardized) training in how to mentor students, yes?

Why do you think a standardized external adviser is more cost effective at providing the education that the student desires than standardized custom tests developed by the teachers for each course?

> "Tenure is not the issue"

You raised the issue, so I don't think you should so easily dismiss it. Yes, I agree that your proposal is different than a liberal arts college. But why does that matter? A lot of other school are also different than a liberal arts school. Why should your proposal stand out among the crowd?

It's like saying that your new two wheeled human powered vehicle is different than a car, when most people want to know how it's different than a bicycle.

> "I mean that there will be no classes, no semester, no academic year, no common schedule of any kind."

That is unusual for college. (Though standard for most of graduate school.) Researching now, that is called 'competency-based education'. It's unusual, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competency-based_learning#Scho... list a handful of colleges which support it. See http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/a-colleg... for a more in-depth essay. The University of Wisconsin's program at http://ecampus.wisconsin.edu/online-degree-programs/flex-opt... shares many of the same aspiration you listed.

Regarding adjunct professors, I made that comparison deliberately. When you say "We won't even be able to treat our independent contractors anywhere near as bad", you assume a system where your scheme is in place, and required. But why will schools switch to what appears to be a significantly more expensive system? How do you reassure people that the extra cost is worthwhile? If the colleges treat the external advisers like crap, and so get few advisers, except the incompetent and those who feel they can make a 'social impact and [give] back to the community' despite getting low-balled - then what's the downside?

You say the benefit of having no standards is that the half-trained 20 year old student can figure out what suits them best, rather than a fully trained 40 year old with years of teaching and industry experience. Yet what little I've seen on the topic suggests that students are usually a worse judge of their needs. For example, and quoting from http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2013/10/21/what-exactly-do-student... :

> These studies confirm the common belief that good teachers can get bad evaluations: Teaching effectiveness, as measured by subsequent performance and career success, is negatively associated with student teaching evaluations. ..

> Students are arguably in the best position to judge certain aspects of teaching that contribute to effectiveness, such as clarity, pace, legibility, audibility. We can use surveys to get a picture of these things; of course, the statistical issues raised in part I of this blog still matter (esp. response rates, inappropriate use of averages, false numerical precision, and scatter).

> Trouble ensues when we ask students to rate teaching effectiveness per se.

If students already do a poor job in estimating teacher effectiveness (based on subsequent performance and career success), then why should we believe they do any better at judging curriculum details? Quoting again from that link:

> Worthington (2002, p.13) also makes the troubling claim, “the questions in student evaluations of teaching concerning curriculum design, subject aims and objectives, and overall teaching performance appear most influenced by variables that are unrelated to effective teaching.

Of course there will be exceptions, both in terms of specific people and certain colleges. New College of Florida is one where more of these decisions are placed in the hands of the students, but it is not completely hands-off.

As for "I suspect that most of the industry experts won't be freelancers, but rather will be employed by one of the corporations with which we have a strategic partnership"; do note that you have changed your position. You previously 'the current model is that industry experts would be treated as independent contractors.' These are not really compatible. If they are employees of a company, will the goal of the industry expert be to provide a student the best education for the student, or the best education for the corporation?

When there is a conflict between the two goals, how often might the industry expert suffer negative employment consequences for supporting the student instead of the expert's employer? In the current system, the teacher's goals are much more aligned to the students goals, so this is less of an issue.

Regarding "Here are some links where you can find information on industry best practices" - that's certainly not "deep personalization", which is what you lead with. Nor are your examples more than what a teacher or undergraduate adviser can already do.

"taking attendance"

Many if not most college courses don't take attendance except for those where class participation is important. For example, I skipped out on a lot of my intro. physics courses. The homework was due at the end of class. We would skip class and work on the homework in the hallway outside.

There are of course classes where attendance is important eg, discussion-oriented classes, lab classes, and music ensemble classes; I don't think it's unreasonable to require a nursing student be present on the day the class practices drawing blood.

These sorts of classes, which you'll note includes career oriented classes like nursing, cannot easily be handled by your proposed system.