SchoolsRetooled TM

From Ivory Tower to Real World Practice

February 7, 2013 at 9:19 AM Leave a comment

Policy wonks and academics have envisioned grand schemes for the future. However, they have not gone the distance to chart the course for achieving and maintaining those realities. I think that’s where the rest of us come in.

Recently, I attended an Askwith Forum at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. The panelists reconvened to summarize their visions for K-12 education after the reformation. The conversation included innovations in teacher prep and professionalism as well as unbundling the job of teaching and the training of leaders in the brave new world of technology and structural change for schooling and, preferably, learning. The brain trust included leaders of the education reform movement, distinguished faculty, and a recent past state education chief. They offered a clear vision for a functionally discordant future…one that could and should evolve out of the natural absence of consensus.

It was a wonderful display of wisdom, save two profound voids. The first was exposed in the form of a giant blank box on the screen that represented the infrastructure to support the collective vision. The second was the absence of an explanation for how to achieve a transformation of leadership and learning without blowing the whole thing up. I had a few thoughts.

On the infrastructure thing, I harken back to my prescription for a functional machine outlined in Seven Keys to Education Reform. Since publication in 2011, it has grown in relevance as the dialogue on education reform has progressed. Further, education reform needs to be reclaimed from policy conservatives with a singular vision that is not scalable or even viable. Their Phoenix leaves too many children in the ashes. It is time to change the conversation.

I believe in a strong centrist vision that can work through reinvention of the underpinnings of public education. But we must be ready to proceed with implementation of…

• The systems integration project that will create a new standard for data as well as a viable platform for exploiting technology in pedagogy.
• The pension reform that will create portability as well as solvency.
• The incentive systems that link to educational outcomes, educator effectiveness, and accelerated longitudinal progress.
• The leadership model that expands the role to encompass management expertise from other fields.
• The vision for equity that does not discriminate on the basis of age, ethnicity, income, religion, gender, or any other demographic factor.

Entry filed under: Issues and Ideas, School Transformation.