What will it take for the United States to transform education?

A lot. But, it’s worth taking on.

Is the purpose of education to design a system that takes every child to a predetermined, common destination? Or, is it about young people discovering their unique path in life — enabling them to contribute their talents and interests to the world in meaningful ways now and in the future?

If we are far more aligned with and inspired by the latter, what will it take to fulfill this purpose and transform education in the United States?

I have previously discussed the foundational need for a mindset shift and the importance of distinguishing between what we call “school-centered” and “learner-centered” education. Working with this clarity around language allows us to avoid tweaking around the edges and actually enables us to get to the point of inventing something new. While my last piece explored what shifts we need to make as individuals, this piece will tackle what it will take as a country to make this shift a reality.

We need supply and demand

Transformation demands that we invent a whole new system that replaces our current one. The current system accepts as normal: standardized curriculum, age-cohorting young people into grades, dividing learning into subjects, ranking young people with grades and tests, changing teachers every year, credentialing learning with seat-time, and many more “norms.”

Transformation takes all of these components that make up our current conception of “school” and invites you to set them aside — imagining from a blank slate. Although an exciting prospect, a huge question is now on the table: How do you invent a whole new learner-centered system of education based on different beliefs about who kids are, how learning happens, and the purpose of education? Is it possible?

The short answer is, yes, it is possible. And, it will take a large-scale movement to see it through. To make this level of transformation a reality, we have to do two things simultaneously:

1. Unleash the desire within communities everywhere for a new system of education that is fundamentally rooted in a different view of success and young people’s potential; and
2. Create a wide-ranging supply of learner-centered sites so that people can see and experience what this new way of learning looks like and the kinds of young people it produces.

Because of the magnitude of this shift, and the unknowability about what it will really take to accomplish the two points above, we at Education Reimagined think of this shift in two waves: working together to lay the groundwork for this movement to spread and then igniting the spread itself.

We need options everywhere, entire ecosystems being invented, and igniting those who are tired of waiting

If by the end of 2030, the nation has done three things, we think we will have laid the necessary foundation to ignite the spread of unique learner-centered options and catalyze the scale of the systemic changes every community will need to bring these opportunities to the young people they serve. The three outcomes we as a nation need to accomplish are:

1. Create learner-centered options in communities across the country so that those that want it now can have it, and those that have no idea what it looks like can see it;
2. Create several regional “laboratories” where communities are inventing the vertically aligned and mutually reinforcing systems and policies that enable full learner-centered ecosystems to thrive; and
3. Unleash and ignite the majority of Americans (across every demographic) who believe success is about living meaningful and fulfilling lives — enabling them to make decisions based on that belief, rather than acting in contradiction to it by advising their kids to play the conventional game of school.

If these three things are accomplished by the end of the decade, we believe that learner-centered education will spread like wildfire.

Kelly Young is the President of Education Reimagined — a national non-profit committed to making learner-centered education available to every child in the US, regardless of background or circumstance.

Explore more learner-centered stories and ideas that are shaping the future of education in Voyager.