Can States Help?

Could states sponsor learner-based enterprises? That’s the question Robin Lake, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, and Kelly Young, from Education Reimagined, explore in a recently released white paper.

Lake and Young write,

“Imagine an education system where every young person could access any learning opportunity they wanted—in any school, museum, summer camp, or park, a nearby farm or a local business. Students could learn together in groups, with community members, and receive the tutoring, therapy, or support they need. They would have opportunities to explore their interests, make connections, form new relationships, and develop critical skills and knowledge. Learning would be individualized but also social and communal. Students would form friendships and discover opportunities for collaboration and leadership.”

“Young people and their families would work closely with trained guides, who would help them set learning goals and design customized plans to meet those goals. The education system would ensure all young people, especially youth who are in marginalized groups, could access learning opportunities that meet their needs and graduate ready to pursue their ambitions.”

“New visions of learning like this are far easier to imagine than they are to create in the real world. But ingredients that would make it possible have been falling into place for years—and that process accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic. Students, families, and educators discovered new possibilities and may have permanently raised their expectations about how much control they have over where, when, how, and with whom children can learn.”

“The rules defining how schooling works are up for grabs like never before. There may never have been so many opportunities to innovate in public education—or so much need. School districts are struggling to keep teachers on the job and schools open, much less address the mental health and academic toll of the pandemic or translate the possibilities uncovered during the crisis into lasting systemic transformation.”

“How can school systems possibly find the bandwidth to act on these new visions for public education when their leaders are constantly trapped in crisis mode?”

“States can help by investing in dedicated structures to support innovation and alternative, flexible ways of learning. One particular mechanism might allow them to pull this off: statewide school districts. These entities could be dedicated to designing bold new visions of what public education can be and working with schools and communities to design local solutions. They could create space and flexibility for innovations to flourish—while also safeguarding students and protecting the public interest.”

“Statewide districts would be freed from some of the rules that traditionally constrain schools, like seat-time requirements or traditional graduation requirements. They would take responsibility for identifying problems and needs, leading efforts to design new solutions, testing those solutions, analyzing results, and elevating promising approaches so other school systems could learn from them.”

Lake and Young point to the Florida Virtual School, North Carolina’s District C, and New Hampshire’s VLACS (their state-wide virtual school) as current examples of state-wide districts available to young learners and their families.

According to Lake and Young, if states could figure out how to demonstrate leadership around this concept, opportunities to unleash creative new learning options might appear, including the following:

“[Providing] infrastructure and supports to allow cities, community groups, or even individuals to form small learning communities”

“During the pandemic, many parents and communities formed learning pods. Some of these efforts live on as microschools, homeschool cooperatives, or other learning communities. Many of these learning environments are designed in ways that challenge the standard definition of school—or the traditional methods of staffing them, regulating them, measuring their effectiveness, and providing their students with transportation or other services.”

“[Creating] a statewide system to validate students’ learning, and give them credit for it”

“Learning happens in and out of school. But schools tend to undervalue learning that does not happen on their watch. New state policies are creating opportunities for students to receive course credit for learning outside the classroom, and initiatives like the Mastery Transcript Consortium are working on ways to verify learning that happens ‘beyond the confines of the school’s physical plant and daily schedule.’”

“[Allowing] youth to access a variety of service providers and mentors”

“All students should have access to diverse providers, including local schools, online courses, businesses that provide internships, youth development programs, and colleges or universities. The statewide district would curate these options and ensure all students have access to them.”

“[Ensuring] all families can access educational options”

“Opening up an array of different learning options that go beyond traditional school threatens to amplify a problem that already affects families choosing schools: low[1]income families, students with special needs, or parents who lack expert guides to the local education system wind up not knowing about or having barriers to accessing options that should be available to them. They might lack information about potential choices or transportation that would help their children access them.”

“[Conducting or commissioning] research on promising innovations”

“As more families and educators seek new approaches to technology-enabled, smaller, or unbundled learning environments, states will need rigorous evidence on their effectiveness.”

“A statewide district could take responsibility for commissioning studies to document emerging best practices, test the efficacy of different approaches, and collect data to inform parents and teachers who are considering new learning approaches.”

“Making a statewide district operational will require state policymakers to consider the following:

• Divisible funding. Funding should follow students to the learning options they choose—and allow students to choose multiple options.

• Governance structures. The statewide district should have statewide jurisdiction and be insulated and distinct from conventional education policies and governance.

• Application processes. Educators and community organizations should have clear processes to apply to become part of a statewide district.

• Staffing flexibility. Many of the roles within a statewide district or its partner organizations will look different from typical teacher job descriptions. Learning guides, advisers, or community-based learning providers could still have the same job protections as traditional educators.

• Research and development. The statewide district should study the innovations it supports, share lessons and practices that emerge with educators and community leaders, and identify new challenges future innovations should address”

What Lake and Young lay out here sounds compelling.

But here’s the question, what state is going to do what it takes to make Lake and Young’s vision become reality?

Years ago, we decided to expand our personalized learning lab school from 50 young learners to 500. To do that, we had to file for a state charter to receive public money needed for the expansion.

The state leaders we met during the charter approval process were not what I would describe as “visionary” or “creative”. Instead, most were traditional educational bureaucrats working in the state’s charter division. Many of them had come from traditional public school districts. In fact, the head of that state’s charter division had worked as a state compliance officer in another state before getting hired to do charter work.

Compliance and creative vision are usually strange bedfellows. At least that’s been my experience after working in the public education system for 30 years, and then the personalized space the past ten.

Here’s hoping a state steps up to the plate, but I’m not holding my breath.

Til tomorrow. SVB