The Problem with Ed Reform

I think the Aurora Institute (AI) tries to do good work. Previously the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, this organization believes it’s lifting up new ideas to shift mental models on public education. The Aurora Institute believes it’s drawing from the latest developments in education systems change nationally and globally to transform K-12 education in the United States.

Recently the Aurora Institute released policy statements for both state and federal government. It’s probably a good idea to review what this thought leading organization thinks need to be done at both the state and federal level to transform K-12 education.

We’ll start with AI’s state policy recommendations.

State policy recommendations include:

• Establishing a statewide profile of a graduate
• Modernizing state education funding
• Advancing racial equity in education
• Increasing educator workforce diversity
• Modernizing the educator workforce
• Advancing competency-based education policies
• Establishing innovation zones
• Investing in COVID-19 learning recovery
• Transforming systems of assessment
• Rethinking “Next Generation” accountability
• Expanding access to broadband
• Creating competency-based pathways along K-12, higher education, career and technology education, and the workforce

Federal policy recommendations for 2022 are:

• Advancing education innovations
• Transforming systems of assessments
• Creating competency-based pathways along K-12, higher education, career and technology education, and the workforce
• Modernizing the educator workforce
• Diversifying the educator workforce
• Advancing educational equity
• Bridging the digital divide
• Supporting COVID-19 learning recovery

Even though organizations like the Aurora Institute are trying to create change with our current public education system, most of them won’t make much impact because they are just too conservative when it comes to their “transformational” recommendations. Establishing a statewide profile of a graduate? Please. We were working on that back in the 1990’s when I was a principal in the Houston Independent School District.

The problem with organizations like the Aurora Institute, and Education Reimagined, and Getting Smart, and Will Richardson’s Big Questions Institute is that they just don’t go far enough in terms of their demands on the traditional public school system to change.

I saw this same attitude when I was an educational non-profit leader in Texas. A group of charter operators and non-profit leaders got together and decided we were going to compete with the Houston Independent School District (HISD) for student enrollment. The idea was to create an alternate school district that would stand beside HISD and try to take enrollment away from them, especially in neighborhoods where HISD’s schools were rate low performing (mostly in black, brown, and poor areas of the city.)

Early on, we had nearly 20 non-profit organizations and three charter operators committed to the plan. But in the eleventh hour, all but two charter operators and two non-profits (mine being one of them) abandoned the idea and the group.

You see most of the non-profits and one of the charter operators did business with HISD, and part of their budget depended on a partnership with the Houston school district. In the end, those non-profits and charter operators voted in accordance with their wish to keep their doors open, and not enter the “belly of the beast.” Those non-profits and charter operators convinced themselves that they could “reform” HISD by working with HISD.

That’s the problem with groups like the Aurora Institute, Education Reimagined, Getting Smart, and the Big Questions Institute. They believe they can reform the traditional school districts they work with. I’m sorry, but that is never going to happen.

Instead, what will happen, is that traditional districts will try to convince these groups that the school system is committed to real change. They will invite these groups to become close partners to the traditional school district. And eventually, the traditional district will slowly make these groups, presently committed to public education transformation, into non-threatening organizations to the district’s future work.

The Aurora Institute, and others like them, are just too meek and mild when it comes to recommending changes to the existing traditional system. If they really want to create attention and eventual change, I might suggest states and the federal government adopt these recommendations:

• All learners will possess their own learning plan, based on competencies
• Some teachers will be replaced with learning coaches, and learning coaches will earn at least $100,000 a year
• A new organization, called The Learning Center, will receive public money to assist young learners and their families to build their own learning plans; young learners have a choice whether they continue to go to places called school or enroll in The Learning Center
• Young learners and their families will choose a learning coach they feel comfortable working with – those learning coaches chosen by young learners will be employed for the term of the learning plan; those adult learning leaders not chosen by young learners will not be employed
• All learners will demonstrate strength in reading, writing, problem-solving, and character development
• Low performing schools will be closed; kids enrolled in these schools will have a choice regarding what their learning plan looks like moving forward

There’s probably more to add here, but it’s a start.

We need to stop spinning our wheels thinking the traditional system is somehow going to change because we keep making in-the-box recommendations on how they should and can be different. The traditional system is what it is, and it’s not going to change. The only way to give kids and their families a chance to have a great learning experience is to admit our current system is broken and can’t be fixed, even if we make meek and mild recommendations to our state and federal leaders.

Our recommendations need to be bold and controversial. Otherwise, we aren’t going to force change.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB