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clgroft comments on Who Wants To Start An Important Startup? - LessWrong
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A certification system to replace high-school and college.
With the explosion in independent study on all education levels, certification is the main missing piece. One solution is tests. For example, Pearson's is offering this service to Udacity students. However, certification-by-testing has had a hard time getting prestige. In the high-status parts of the software industry, getting Java/Microsoft/etc. certification is a slight negative on your job value -- i.e., one is expected to countersignal.
So, we need a certification system that succeeds at serving as a signal.
What successful examples can we find? The actuarial industry has a system of advancement with ten exams. There is no requirement to get a certain degree to take them. The top level is considered an intellectual achievement roughly equivalent to a PhD.
Perhaps the certification we're offering should test useless skills which require a long time to acquire, proving that one is not just smart but hard-working. Compare Latin in earlier periods, and the software language Scheme (a language used mostly for theory, not for product development) in the software industry today.
The usual trappings of signaling, like association with prestigious people, would be an essential part of the marketing.
Perhaps this is the key. Instead of coming up with our own replacement certification system, maybe we need to make it easier for companies and industries to create their own. They're the ones who know what matters for their own fields.
As an entry point, one might create an online job application builder. Questionnaires are easy (and probably not worth a startup), but if the application could have "code this" questions, and the answers were checked on the server, that could be a killer feature for tech companies.
Yes, but supervision is essential for the tests to be reliable. The basic solution to that is to set up hundreds of in-person test centers, with proctors, as Pearson has. On-site testing can be minimized with various imperfect techniques, like letting people take some tests at home with cameras showing that they aren't cheating, and then using on-site tests as final confirmation of scores.
As a start up, having hundreds of centers might be a bad idea. See if you can make deals with local libraries/ YMCAs/ churches/ schools/ even local businesses that sometimes hold classes, like Michael's and see if you can test there, while you are still growing.
Even with that, there might be easier ways. I remember going to school in NC at a Community College online. I had a presentation I had to do as a project, The school was like, 3-4 hours away and the presentation had to be in the early morning. She let me do it over the phone.
That doesn't scale up very well, obviously, but your main advantage early on as online is being able to tap into the market all over the US and beyond. You might have one state with less than a dozen students. It'd be terrible to have to travel hours, early in the morning to one building that's only open/ needs to be open maybe seven days a year.