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The Shifting Stage towards Non-Public Education

by | Sep 29, 2022 | Future of Education

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Shifting Stage towards Non-Public Education

COVID, politics, and Covid-politics spurred divisions and antagonisms between people and certain institutions, including K-12 education. As a result, education in the future will be different and likely more complex as we exit these tumultuous times into a new normal.

Over the past few years, K-12 education systems have been front and center in several ways, and not for the better. Children were forced to learn from home, some would say, for far too long, since for many youngsters, that meant no learning at all. Many less-motivated kids will never recover from this 1+ year gap in in-person learning.

Over the same period, elements of the K-12 curriculum also came to light, in most cases because parents were looking over the shoulders of their learn-from-home kids. Curricula related to sexual orientation and re-interpretations of history seemed to rise to the top. “Wokeness” issues, usually the province of higher ed, made their way into the K-12 sphere during this period.

In response, parents started protesting at school board meetings, voting in entire new boards, and often pulling their kids out of school completely.

There’s no doubt in my mind that our news media tends to blow these and other kinds of issues out of proportion and elevate isolated or limited incidents to the status of trends. In the long run, parents abandoning the public school system has become a significant trend and one we’ll continue to monitor.

Parental activism has died down somewhat, but the disenrollment numbers are considerable. Private, charter and at-home schooling are now more popular education options than ever. And to make matters worse, our public school systems were already facing decreasing enrollments due to declining birth rates and slowing immigration.

Altogether, the situation is exacerbated by a host of new cultural forces to the point where this will be considered the turning point for education, as the long-term viability of public education is further scrutinized.

The Declining Numbers

The Department of Education reported a decline of 1.6 million students in public schools and public charter schools between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020.

There was a partial bounce back after that. An Education Next survey found that these declines in enrollment partially reversed in 2021, but the percentage of students in district schools compared to the alternatives still remains several percentage points below 2019/2020 levels.

The proportion of students receiving private, charter, and homeschool education have all increased since 2020. The share for private schools increased from 8% to 10%; for charter schools, it expanded from 5% to 7%; for homeschool, the share edged up from 6% to 7%.

Again, it’s not a tsunami but a significant trend. And it’s a trend that parents, local governments, and policymakers need to plan for. They’d better think differently as they look to reshape the future of public education.

Interestingly, according to some sources, support for school choice in general, including charter schools and vouchers for private education, declined during 2020 and then rose as the pandemic receded. This perhaps was an indication that the underlying threat to public schools extends beyond Covid to longer-term concerns related to academic rigor and curriculum.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Emerging Future of Public Education based on Capitalism
We’ll always need to have public schools, at the very least, to serve as the educator of last resort. Public schools cannot pick and choose students based on their IQ, financial status, connections, or motivation.

To survive, though, public school systems will need to take on some of the characteristics of alternative schools and even merge elements of those institutions into their own. We see this already happening, for example, with public charter schools that focus on STEM or foreign language immersion.

The opposite will also be true, and the private education alternative institutions will embrace some of the programs taught in private schools. They’ll purchase, for example, certain intellectual property of public schools, such as a teaching guide, a semester curriculum, or even access to specific classes. Similarly, home-schooled students have the option to dial into a public-school STEM class for a fee, or their parents will purchase STEM course workbooks or semester lesson plans.

Some religious private schools may want to maintain their own teachers and coursework for humanities, literature, and even some of the sciences, but they may choose to work with a local public school for access to a particular algebra teacher (either online or in-person) specifically for an 8th or 9th-grade math class, as talented teachers become increasingly hard to find.

Larger private schools will maintain many of their own extracurricular programs, from band to sports to drama, but smaller private and charter schools, as well as home school parents, will have the opportunity to sign their students up for these opportunities at nearby public schools – again, for an agreed upon fee.

An Issue of Fairness

Many readers will undoubtedly point out that taxpayers publicly finance public schools – and that includes the parents who choose to purchase an alternative education experience in the form of private schools, charter schools, or home schools. Should they have to pay to access these public school programs that would have been free to them if their children went to those schools?

The road to capitalist public education will need to cross those bridges, and local policymakers and voters will decide what’s fair and what’s not. But if public schools price their services to these alternative schools and families fairly, based on true incremental costs, it shouldn’t be a major issue.

We’re less a society of one-size-fits-all than ever before. We’re now far less inclined to accept the status quo. Our K-12 education system will reflect that in the future as schools develop more options than ever for parents who want to mix and match the ideal combination of educational systems, courses, and activities for their kids. Public schools will need to keep up if they are to survive.

Moving Forward

Over the coming weeks, I’ll dive into a number of scenarios that I feel will begin to redefine education completely.

We’re entering a world that will require higher caliber people to make it work, and it is preposterous for us to think our existing systems can suddenly start producing better results.

Each of us has only one body, one mind, and one life, and whatever we do to increase our skills and capabilities will make each of us more valuable on the world stage.

With the help of AI, people in the future will view themselves as being in a constant state of improvement. This means that over the coming decades, we will become exponentially more fixable – trainable, repairable, improvable, and even reinventable.

It will no longer be about who we are today but who we have the potential to become. And tomorrow’s AI engineers will take on one of the world’s most important missions, which is to make that happen.

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The Shifting Stage towards Non-Public Education

by | Sep 29, 2022 | Future of Education

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Canyon Ferry Disaster

Built in 1954, the Canyon Ferry Dam has stood as an engineering marvel, powering over 100,000 homes.

Modern civilization is built on precision, innovation, and control—but when one failure occurs in an interconnected system, the consequences can be unstoppable. The Canyon Ferry Disaster is more than a catastrophe; it is a cautionary tale of how a single breach can unravel decades of progress, setting off a chain reaction of destruction that no one can stop.
What began as a fracture in one dam quickly escalated into the largest infrastructure collapse in American history. One after another, dams crumbled, rivers swelled beyond control, and cities vanished beneath an unrelenting flood. The Missouri River, once a lifeline for millions, became a weapon of mass destruction, leaving entire states submerged and the nation in chaos.

This is not just the story of a disaster—it is the story of how fragile our modern world truly is. This account will trace the slow-motion nightmare that unfolded over twelve days, the desperate evacuations, and the lessons we must learn to ensure this never happens again. Because if history has taught us anything, it is this: when the first dam breaks, the clock starts ticking.

1. Setting the Stage: A Calm Before the Chaos

The Missouri River glides silently beneath the warm glow of an early spring sunset, its surface undisturbed, almost tranquil. The vast Canyon Ferry Reservoir stretches to the horizon, a colossal body of water swollen to its limits by the seasonal snowmelt. Beneath its smooth facade, 134 billion cubic feet of water press against the towering Canyon Ferry Dam, a monolith of stone and steel standing guard over Montana’s rugged landscape.

Built in 1954, the dam is more than just an engineering marvel—it is a lifeline. Its hydroelectric turbines provide power to over 100,000 homes, its waters irrigate thousands of acres of farmland, and its reservoir draws boaters, anglers, and campers seeking escape into Montana’s wilderness. At 210 feet high and 3,280 feet long, it is a sentinel of progress, a testament to mankind’s ability to tame nature’s fury.

But below the surface, unseen and unforgiving forces are at play.

Downstream, the Missouri River winds its way through a chain of dams, each a critical link in the region’s infrastructure. The Hauser Dam, just 14 miles away, holds 5 billion cubic feet of water in check. Farther down, 30 miles from Canyon Ferry, the Holter Dam contains another 12 billion cubic feet. Together, these structures balance power and control, protecting Helena, Great Falls, and dozens of smaller communities nestled along the riverbanks.

Beyond them, the Missouri River Basin sprawls across the heartland, home to over 2.5 million people who depend on its waters for drinking, industry, and agriculture. While only a fraction of them live within the immediate floodplain, a catastrophic failure here would send shockwaves across the Midwest, disrupting power grids, supply chains, and entire economies.

Yet, on this serene evening, there are no warnings, no sirens—only a quiet, uneasy stillness. A handful of anglers cast their lines into the glassy waters, unaware that history is about to change.

Because at this very moment, a plan is in motion. A deliberate act of destruction has been set into place—one designed to exploit the river at its most vulnerable. The conspirators know the stakes. They understand the chain reaction that a single breach will unleash. And they know that within hours, this calm reservoir will become an unstoppable force of devastation.

For now, the only sounds are the splash of fish breaking the surface and the soft rustling of wind through the pines. The Canyon Ferry Dam stands, silent and unyielding.

But not for long.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Prelude to Destruction

The Canyon Ferry Reservoir has long been a hidden gem tucked into the mountains of Montana.

2. The Prelude to Destruction

Dressed in unremarkable fishing gear, two men unload a motorized raft on the quiet eastern edge of the Canyon Ferry Reservoir. To an untrained observer, they appear to be ordinary fishermen, blending seamlessly into the tranquil surroundings. But their actions—subtle, deliberate—betray their true intent. Weighted backpacks filled with explosives, carefully constructed to withstand the pressure and turbulence of deep water, are lowered into the raft. The payload, consisting of seven interconnected explosive packs, is designed to deliver a synchronized detonation capable of breaching even the most robust dam structures.

The dam's spillway—its Achilles' heel—is their target. The Canyon Ferry Dam, holding back 134 billion cubic feet of water, stands as a critical point in the Missouri River’s intricate hydrological system. A breach here would unleash catastrophic downstream consequences. The Hauser Dam, 14 miles downstream and containing 5 billion cubic feet of water, would likely fail within hours. Holter Dam, located 30 miles from Canyon Ferry and holding 12 billion cubic feet, would inevitably collapse under the combined pressure. Together, these three dams control the flow of water through a basin that directly supports over 300,000 residents in Montana while indirectly impacting millions across the Midwest.

Under the cover of nightfall, the perpetrators navigate their raft with care, steering away from any prying eyes or patrol boats. The reservoir, spanning 10 miles, offers them plenty of space to operate in relative isolation. As they approach the dam’s spillway—a point they meticulously identified as the structural weak spot—they move with precision.

Their explosives are tethered along a cable designed to span the height of the dam’s foundation. Each pack is carefully positioned at calculated depths to maximize the impact of the detonation, ensuring that the initial blast will penetrate the earth and concrete barrier holding back the massive reservoir. The tether is anchored securely to the spillway wall, and the waterproof timers are activated. The countdown begins, set to deliver devastation at precisely 12:02 a.m.

The two men work in silence, their practiced efficiency reflecting months of planning. They know the stakes: a breach at Canyon Ferry will initiate a chain reaction, leading to the catastrophic failure of dams further downstream. As they finish their task, the duo vanishes into the surrounding wilderness, leaving no trace of their presence.
This single act sets the stage for a disaster that will reshape the lives of millions. Helena, the state capital located 23 miles from Canyon Ferry, is home to over 30,000 residents who rely on the dam for water, power, and flood control. Beyond Helena, the floodwaters will race toward Great Falls, a city of 58,000, and eventually to the broader Midwest, where the economic and human toll will be felt by millions.

By midnight, the tranquility of the Montana night will give way to an engineered catastrophe as the first moments of destruction begin to unfold.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: Emergency Crews Mobilize

At precisely 12:02 am, the stillness of the Montana night is shattered.

3.) The Midnight Call: Emergency Crews Mobilize

At precisely 12:02 a.m., the stillness of the Montana night is shattered. A deep, concussive explosion rips through the base of Canyon Ferry Dam, sending shockwaves through the massive concrete structure. The once-unyielding wall of reinforced concrete and earth buckles, and within seconds, a catastrophic breach opens.

The reservoir, swollen with 134 billion cubic feet of water, unleashes its fury, carving a violent new channel through the canyon walls. A roaring, frothing wave surges downstream at over 30 mph, erasing roads, bridges, and homes in its path.

The Midnight Alarm: Emergency Crews Awaken

Within minutes of the explosion, emergency dispatch centers across Montana light up with frantic calls.

  • Montana Highway Patrol officers jolt awake to the shrill ring of their radios, orders crackling through the speakers:
    “Evacuate all communities along the Missouri River. The dam is gone.”
  • Firehouses scramble to respond, their crews grabbing gear in a blur of movement as sirens scream through sleeping towns.
  • National Guard units, roused from their beds, are ordered to immediate deployment, their convoys speeding toward the rising disaster.

The news spreads in waves of disbelief and urgency.

  • Dispatchers struggle to relay information, overwhelmed by a flood of 911 calls from terrified residents.
  • Mayors and emergency coordinators in Helena, Great Falls, and beyond are jolted awake by emergency briefings—what they hear defies belief.
  • Hospitals activate mass casualty protocols, clearing emergency rooms for an influx of injured evacuees.

As the first reports filter in—Canyon Ferry is gone, Hauser is failing, Holter is next—one thing becomes clear: this is no localized disaster. This is a national catastrophe in motion.

The First Domino: Hauser and Holter Collapse

By 12:30 a.m., emergency responders in Townsend, East Helena, and Helena are already in the streets, pounding on doors, screaming at people to evacuate. But the flood moves faster than they can warn.

  • The Hauser Dam, just 14 miles downstream, is overwhelmed within 45 minutes. The 5 billion cubic feet of water behind it surges free, adding fuel to the already unstoppable wave.
  • By 2:00 a.m., Holter Dam (holding 12 billion cubic feet) collapses, its concrete walls buckling under the relentless force.

The Missouri River has now doubled in volume, multiplying its destructive power with each collapse.

A Night of Chaos: Emergency Crews Race Against Time

With every hour that passes, the flood picks up speed, debris, and lives.

  • State troopers in helicopters broadcast evacuation orders over loudspeakers, their voices barely audible over the roaring flood.
  • Firefighters and medics stage along higher ground, awaiting the injured—but knowing their numbers will quickly overwhelm resources.
  • National Guard engineers race to reinforce bridges and levees, but it’s already too late for many.

The entire state of Montana is now in a state of emergency.

Great Falls: The Next City in Line

Located 75 miles downstream, Great Falls (population 58,000) braces for the inevitable. The Missouri River is now a runaway force of destruction, fed by three dam failures.

  • At 4:30 a.m., city sirens wail, warning of the incoming wall of water.
  • Military helicopters circle above, lighting up the darkness with searchlights as they pull stranded residents from rooftops.
  • Highway patrol officers form human chains, dragging people from stalled vehicles on submerged highways.

The Missouri River is no longer a river—it is a weapon, carrying the flood toward even more densely populated regions.

Dawn Brings a Grim Reality

By 6:00 a.m., the rising sun reveals a transformed landscape. The waters now stretch for miles beyond the riverbanks, swallowing entire towns like an advancing ocean.

  • Over 500,000 residents across the Missouri River Basin are without power, clean water, or escape routes.
  • Railroads, highways, and supply chains are severed, cutting off vital aid to affected areas.
  • Rescue crews, exhausted and overwhelmed, begin marking buildings with spray paint, signaling where survivors have been found—and where bodies remain.

The nation wakes up to the biggest disaster in modern American history—and it is only just beginning.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Cascading Failure of Missouri River Dams

Over the coming days, over 300 bridges will be destroyed!.

4. The Domino Effect: From Montana to the Midwest

The Cascading Failure of Missouri River Dams

As the breach at Canyon Ferry Dam unleashes 134 billion cubic feet of water, a deadly chain reaction begins, overwhelming the Missouri River’s system of dams and reservoirs. The surging flood quickly overcomes the Hauser Dam (14 miles downstream, holding 5 billion cubic feet) and then slams into the Holter Dam (another 15 miles downstream, containing 12 billion cubic feet). Each failure amplifies the flood’s destructive force, accelerating its deadly march across Montana.

Yet, this is just the beginning. The water, now a roaring deluge of over 150 billion cubic feet, is propelled downstream by the Missouri River’s rapid elevation drop—a geographical feature that turns a disaster into a catastrophe.

From Canyon Ferry to Fort Peck Dam, the Missouri River plunges more than 1,000 feet in elevation over a 300-mile stretch. This steep decline transforms the flood into a fast-moving torrent, exponentially increasing its power. The river, normally controlled by a series of hydroelectric projects, is now an unchecked, relentless force.

The Final Stand: Fort Peck Dam

Located nearly 300 miles northeast of Canyon Ferry, Fort Peck Dam is the largest dam on the Missouri River and one of the most massive earthen dams in the world. Completed in 1940, it stands 250 feet high and 21,026 feet long, forming the Fort Peck Reservoir, which stretches 134 miles and holds an astonishing 19 million acre-feet (825 billion cubic feet) of water. This dam plays a critical role in regulating the Missouri River’s flow and preventing catastrophic floods.

But as the floodstorm barrels toward Fort Peck, engineers at the dam realize the terrifying reality: the dam’s current outflow system cannot release water fast enough to compensate for the incoming surge. Fort Peck is already at near-capacity from spring runoff, and with the combined floodwaters from Canyon Ferry, Hauser, and Holter, the reservoir’s levels begin to rise at a staggering rate.

At 10:45 a.m., the reservoir has exceeded emergency spillway levels. The earthen dam, never designed to withstand such an overwhelming surge, starts showing signs of structural failure. Engineers scramble to increase controlled releases, but it’s futile.

By 11:12 a.m., a massive section of Fort Peck’s earthen embankment gives way. Within minutes, the entire eastern section collapses, sending a 150-foot-high wall of water racing downstream at over 30 mph.

The Cataclysm Unleashed

With Fort Peck’s 825 billion cubic feet of water now joining the flood, the torrent has become an unstoppable inland tsunami, moving relentlessly toward Garrison Dam in North Dakota. The elevation drop between Fort Peck and Garrison spans over 300 feet, adding even more momentum to the water’s deadly charge.

By 3:30 p.m., the Garrison Dam, one of the largest hydroelectric facilities in the U.S., collapses under the onslaught. This final breach sends a surge of over 2.5 trillion cubic feet of water cascading down the Missouri River, obliterating towns, cities, and infrastructure across Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Midwest.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey Blog: The Slow March of Disaster

While most people have been warned to evacuate, the destruction of property is unfathomable.

5.) The Slow March of Disaster: A Nation Watches in Horror

By daylight, the unstoppable wall of water has already consumed much of Montana and North Dakota, and now it creeps—agonizingly slow yet inescapable—toward the heart of the Midwest. The disaster does not strike all at once. Instead, it unfolds in slow motion, a grinding inevitability that emergency crews and news helicopters track in real time, broadcasting the destruction hour by hour to a stunned nation.

Bismarck Overwhelmed: The Water Rises, and Hope Fades

From the air, Bismarck looks like a city under siege by nature itself. The once-mighty Missouri River has swollen to five times its normal width, and levees that held through the night are now visibly bulging, crumbling, then failing altogether.

Helicopters hover over the stranded residents, capturing footage of entire neighborhoods gradually vanishing beneath the encroaching flood. The footage is surreal—people wading through waist-deep water, clutching their children and whatever belongings they can carry.

On the ground, emergency responders battle exhaustion as they ferry stranded families to safety in boats. Some neighborhoods are completely cut off, leaving rescue crews to make impossible choices about who to evacuate first.

  • Bismarck’s flood stage is typically 16 feet, but by noon, the water has risen past 35 feet—and it keeps climbing.
  • Highway 83, the last major evacuation route, is swallowed in slow motion.
  • National Guard troops coordinate rooftop rescues while power stations spark and fail.

The collapse of Garrison Dam upstream means that Bismarck’s fate is sealed—the city will not be spared. Residents flee to higher ground, watching their homes become part of the ever-widening floodplain.

Oahe Dam Teeters on the Brink: The Clock Runs Out

Further downstream, Pierre, South Dakota, waits in agonizing silence. Residents have been watching the rising water for days, knowing the Oahe Dam stands between them and annihilation.

Live news feeds capture the moment the colossal structure gives way. At 9:40 a.m., an earthen section of the dam cracks, buckles, then collapses. The dam’s 102 billion cubic feet of water explode outward, sending a new tidal wave racing toward South Dakota’s capital.

From above, helicopters capture the moment the surge hits downtown Pierre. Streets become rivers, cars float like toys, and entire buildings dislodge and drift away. The bridge spanning the Missouri River collapses, cutting off all hope of escape for those still trapped on the wrong side.

  • Pierre’s population of 14,000 has less than 30 minutes before the entire city is underwater.
  • The flood, now carrying the force of three dam failures, picks up even more speed as it descends into South Dakota.
  • Livestock in nearby fields struggle in the churning water, helpless as their pastures become part of the widening disaster.

Sioux City: The Evacuation Race Against Time

As the water thunders southward, Sioux City, Iowa, watches and waits, its people glued to live updates of Pierre’s destruction. They know they are next.

The city’s levees, reinforced only hours earlier, are now visibly weakening. Military convoys rush thousands toward higher ground, but the roads are choked with traffic, a slow-moving panic.

By mid-afternoon, the inevitable happens—the Missouri River breaks through. The flood arrives not as a single towering wave, but as a relentless surge, rising inch by inch until the entire city is drowning.

  • Families abandon vehicles on flooded highways, scrambling for higher overpasses.
  • Shelters overflow as tens of thousands are displaced.
  • A power station explodes in a shower of sparks, plunging half the city into darkness.

Final Thoughts - A Pill for Humanity’s Future

The Canyon Ferry Disaster is more than a tragedy—it is a warning. A single point of failure unraveled the entire Missouri River Basin, leaving millions displaced and the heartland in ruins. The disaster underscores the fragility of our systems and the urgent need for innovation, resilience, and vigilance.

As communities embark on the long road to recovery, one truth is clear: we must redesign our world to prevent such catastrophic chain reactions from ever happening again. The lessons of this tragedy must shape the future, ensuring that our civilization does not crumble under the weight of its own complexity.

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Book Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey