On this Leap Day, 2024, I thought I might continue the prediction series started a few days ago when I shared the Center on Reinventing Public Education director Robin Lake’s prognostications for 2024. I’m not sure all of my predictions will come true in one year, so let’s just say we can revisit these “ten” on the next Leap Day in 2028.
Prediction #1
Public school districts will continue to lose market share when it comes to K-12 enrollment.
This trend has already started after parents saw what flimsy education their kids were receiving from their public schools during the COVID pandemic. With the increased numbers of learning pods and microschools, coupled with the dramatic rise in education savings accounts now available to families, public school leaders should prepare themselves now for families “voting with their feet” and finding other learning options for their kids.
Prediction #2
More and more districts will face long-term financial difficulties.
Decreased K-12 enrollment will be the main culprit in school districts facing additional financial woes moving forward. But the fact that most school districts are too fat when it comes to their spending will also contribute to their long-term financial woes. What is currently happening in Vermont and other states is the K-12 financial equivalent of “chickens coming home to roost.” K-12 systems have hung on to “business as usual” for too long, ignoring the possibility that in 2024 we can make kids smarter and stronger at a far less cost than we did 50 years ago. But if you take a look at most school budgets these days, their financial books look very similar to how they conducted their business back in the 1980’s.
Prediction #3
Colleges of education will see declining enrollment due to their lack of innovative practice.
Speaking of an institution that is stuck in the 1980’s, most of our colleges of education aren’t helping adult learning leaders figure out new strategies on how our young learners become smarter and stronger. Like one dean told me a few years ago, “My college will prepare teachers the way my partner districts want them prepared. There is no reason to change.” So if the colleges of education aren’t changing, and the K-12 systems aren’t changing, where will change happen?
Prediction #4
Learning pod and microschool growth will continue to increase, especially for black, brown, and poor learners and their families.
If you were a black, brown, or poor family with kids school-age, why would you keep those children in a school system that expected you to send your kids to a low-performing school. It might be different if that school system asked you to enroll them for one or two years with the promise that the school would be fixed for the rest of their time there. But the fact is that the low-performing school blacks, browns, and poor families send their kids to usually aren’t fixed for years – even generations. Parents who send their kids to “sucky schools” aren’t stupid. Most know that their schools are low-performing. Now, with the advent of other choices, along with the existing charter options, parents no longer will have to send their kids to schools that should probably be closed.
Prediction #5
Trailblazing groups will begin training adult learning leaders to focus on learning and not teaching.
If college of education won’t serve the nation as the place where adult learning leaders are trained in a different way, there will be other training opportunities appearing to meet that need. If the focus becomes one of building strong readers, writers, problem-solvers, and people of character, then those adults leading these efforts need different training than what we’ve done over the past 50 years with the “traditional teacher.” Training might include how to create an individualized learning plan and monitor than plan on a daily and weekly basis, how to resource learning from such places like the world wide web and local community expertise, and how to balance general educational skills (like reading, writing, and problem-solving) with content-specific pursuits.
Prediction #6
Academic growth will replace achievement as the indicator of whether a young learner has been successful in their learning or not.
Like life, learning is all about growth. Learning is a process, not a destination. In the near future, young learners won’t be judged on whether they “read on a 3rd grade level,” but by “how much growth they have shown in their reading skills over the past year.” That’s a big difference, especially when it comes to motivating the young learner. Growth always has a formative goal attached to it. Achievement is nothing more than a stagnant, summative goal. Once you achieve the goal, where do you go from there?
Prediction #7
Relationships will become the starting point when working with young learners.
Back in the 1990’s, school improvement was all about the “3 R’s” – rigor, relevance, and relationships – with all schools expected to work on all three. But truth be known, most of us worked on two – rigor and relevance – and let the relationship piece slide. Big mistake! Because once you build a relationship with a kid (coaches and fine art directors already know this), that kid will do pretty much anything you ask them to do – including algebra. Focusing on relationships first will also address the dismal mental health we are seeing in our youth these days.
Prediction #8
Empowerment for adult learning leaders and young learners will replace traditional decision-making in the K-12 system.
Decision-making in our traditional school systems follow this pattern – school board, central office, school principal, and teacher. In our new learning system, decision-making follows this pattern – young learner (along with their family) and their adult learning leader/coach. Decisions will no longer come from “on high.” Decisions regarding what is learned, how it is learned, where it is learned, will all emanate from the young learner and their adult learning coach. Now that’s empowerment.
Prediction #9
Anytime, anywhere learning will become the standard practice. The agrarian school calendar will go away.
The idea that kids go to a place called school from 8 AM to 3 PM, Monday thru Friday, from August to May can now be determined as “ridiculous.” Kids – all of us – have always learned anytime, anywhere. Now, we have the technology to give kids, and everyone, credit for that learning. This seems to be something traditional schools can’t and won’t do. And that might be the biggest reason for leaving the traditional school system behind.
Prediction #10
We will finally figure out technology can help kids become smarter and stronger, and we will stop seeing technology as a threat.
The best advice I can give traditional school systems regarding technology is this: Technology is our friend. It can help our kids, and ourselves, learn at deeper levels than ever before.
But it seems there are too many K-12 systems these days that see technology as their enemy. Imagine how ridiculous it will sound in 2028, when we revisit these predictions, to think that some of our traditional school leaders wanted to “ban cell phones” from the classroom and disallow ChatGPT from being used.
Crazy.
Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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