Doesn't pass the ROFL test.

There isn't (or shouldn't be) anything disruptive about MOOCs. Online courses offer very little of value. They might offer some complement or supplement to learning of some material, but very little of substance.

MOOCs are another in a long list of educational fads, which as all fads, cost dearly and accomplish nothing and waste time and effort.

Question: Would MOOCs to teach basketball be disruptive to basketball coaches and players everywhere? If not, why not?

MOOCs are not truly disruptive to learning physics, math, literature, Spanish, etc for the same reasons that MOOCs are not disruptive to learning basketball.

That is not to say that the ridiculous ROFL ideas will not prevail. I'm certain they will.

I don't look at efforts like this as a way for millions of more people to get a college degree. Rather, as another method to gain knowledge, facts, artistic awareness, etc. I believe that an industrious human brain can gather all of these things and arrange them into a higher personal platform to see the world better. Many of our Founders did just that. Today, it seems, Big Education has convinced too many that the only way to truly learn is to be in a classroom, scaffold, work collaboratively with one's peers and watch lots of videos.
I also envision a society where, as we had years ago, that one possessed with the character and intelligence and mastery of subject matter could become an attorney, or teacher, or any tradesman without having to give up 4-6 years of life and thousands of dollars to a school.
I think it would be great for an 18 year old, who loved art, to spend several hours a day for 5, 6, 7+ years and learn as much as he could about all facets of art, knock on a museum door, and instead of being turned away because he did not have a degree in art, could impress a curator and be hired.

Reed,

You are welcome to envision all you like, and hold up our Founders as examples, but reality not a utopia is where the discussion must be focused. A relative handful of Founding Fathers, rich and privileged, has little to say about education of millions. Thomas Jefferson himself, one of the privileged, wanted to make public education one of the rights embedded in the new Constitution; he was not a utopian and knew without a nationwide educational system, and universal education, democracy was not feasible.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be."

and "Now let us see what the present primary schools cost us, on the supposition that all the children of 10. 11. & 12. years old are, as they ought to be, at school: and, if they are not, so much the work is the system; for they will be untaught, and their ignorance & vices will, in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences, than it would have done, in their correction, by a good education."

Your contact with reality needs to be questioned. "...without having to give up 4-6 years of life ... to a school." Well, "giving up 4-6 years" to learn anything is the norm. There is not any disagreement that it takes 10,000 hours of focused study and "scaffolding" (meaning doing increasingly difficult and challenging practice) to achieve expertise in any area. And it's not "giving up" a life, it's creating one.

There is an old Jewish "joke" that asks: "When does a person become a viable human being?" Answer: "After graduation from medical school'. So, what "life" are people "giving up" to get an education? The life of consumption, fun, entertaining oneself, playing video games, watching tv?.

And, your example of an 18 year old spending several hours a day for 7 years as a good example is wrong and unrealistic. Such an education might make a good hobby and be valuable in that way, but if the society you live in and the conditions which are imposed on you require different skills, you better be ready.

One of the most depressing but illustrative example of the US educational decline came about due to the Deep Water Horizon catastrophe. As President Obama was touring the disaster area, he was bombarded with demands by fishermen and restaurant owners, and those dependent on tourism that the government must set their business up again because that is what they know and that is what they do.

I'm a liberal but not a paternalistic liberal and I'm not a politician dependent on giving people what they want. This is an about way of saying that the society, through government and other entities, should help those in such circumstances, but when circumstances change, or the society needs you to do something else, you do whatever is required and be happy about it. Instead of grit, I saw incapacity to do what was necessary, and dependency on non-resident volunteers to clean up the mess instead of the locals.

To be practical, my heroes are the "Rosie the Riveters". The measure of a good education is the ability, when called, to be able to stand proudly and say "I'm here".