I’ve previously written on the rivalry between chief academic officers (who manage instruction) and chief schools officers (who manage the portfolio of schools).

In traditional districts, I deeply believe that the chief academic officer should report to the chief schools officer, who should report to the superintendent.

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In the future, I think the chief academic risks losing another battle: this time with instructional platforms.

In his book the End of Average, Tyler Cowen makes the argument that those professional who form symbiotic relationships with technology will thrive. He cites the example of hybrid human-computer chess teams.

It is likely that the same will be true in education.

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My hunch is that in the future most schools and districts will be on educational platforms that combine human curation of content and algorithms to develop an instructional program from afar.

In this sense, many school operators will outsource many of the traditional roles of a chief academic officer to a platform.

Once these platforms get good enough – chief academic officers who claim “I know our children better” and demand full control of the academic program – will lose. The platform will be better.

The platform , on average, will be better than a chief academic officer.

But this does not mean that a platform, on average, will be better than a platform + a smart / humble / hardworking chief academic officer.

As with chess, the hybrid may very well win.

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How might a chief academic officer add value in this new role?

She could:

1. Monitor relationships and place students and teachers into groups in a manner that would be difficult for a platform to intuit.
2. Utilize local community resources to augment instruction.
3. Provide intensive academic support to students who are not progressing as expected.
4. Provide non-academic interventions to struggling students.
5. Run experiments to test whether new platforms might be better to adopt.

In other words, the chief academic officer might morph into a chief learning officer that focuses on psychology, relationships, anomolies, and technology acquisition.

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Timing is one of the hardest part about incorporating technology into daily operations.

Move too fast and you have a mess.

Move too slow and you’ve harmed those you’re serving.

Over the past year, I’ve tried to spend time learning about the major platforms out there.

It feels like it’s getting close.

Not yet sure who is Friendster and who is Facebook.

The race is on, as they say.