Education for Public Problem Solving
In the 21st century, modern democracies face large and complex challenges. Inequality, extremism, climate change, and technological disruption are just a few of the problems policymakers in the public, private, and non-profit sectors will continue to face in the decades ahead.
At the same time, public policy schools — the most obvious forum for the training of future policymakers — often focus narrowly on policy analysis with insufficient attention to the craft of solving public problems. And those working in policy roles are just as likely to have studied law or business as public policy.
“Many public policy schools have focused on training students to be policy analysts,” says Francis Fukuyama, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Director of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy. “While this is an important function, they need to provide a wider set of skills that allow their graduates to be change-makers and leaders as well in the complex real-world environments in which they will be working.”
Together with Jeremy Weinstein of Stanford University, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Tara McGuinness of New America, and Philip Zelikow of the University of Virginia, Fukuyama has organized the Working Group on Public Problem Solving. Composed of public policy educators, including current and former deans and former public officials, the group strives to reorient public policy education around solving public problems by unifying educational innovators and building a critical mass of stakeholders seeking new approaches to public policy education.
The group has drafted a “Statement on Education for Public Problem Solving”, which sets out its views on the gaps in traditional public policy education, while sketching out the contours of a new more holistic approach centered on solving public problems.
The statement points to several methods relevant to public problem solving, including historical understanding, social science tools and insights, moral reasoning, design methods, and qualitative fieldwork. “We emphasize a broader approach (centered on rigorous methods for assessment, design, and implementation) that is intensely practical — grounded in local circumstances, the way institutions work, and the necessary political partnerships,” says Zelikow, who is a Professor of History at the University of Virginia and former Counselor of the U.S. State Department.
The Working Group has opened the statement to signers with the aim of garnering broad-based support for public problem solving as a new direction for public policy education. The group has also created a website as a home base for information about public problem solving, publications that expound the thinking behind the movement, and resources to support educators who want to incorporate public problem solving into their teaching.
“It’s time to anchor a new curriculum around a multi-disciplinary approach to solving public problems, drawing equally on expertise and experimentation and focusing on the people the solutions are meant to help,” says Slaughter, who is New America’s President and CEO, former Dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and former Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. State Department. “New approaches are out there; we hope to spur a wider movement toward reform.”
