Insufficient priority has been placed on learning, having significant impact on our national education ecosystem.
How and why has this happened? There are actually many vectors to this problem. We believe all of them are important to help us understand the problem, in order to drive change in this critical, foundational area.
(a.) Visioning: Horace Mann: "Goal of schools to create 'social harmony' and to be the 'great equalizer'". These goals no longer appear to be in effect today. Is there an updated vision that is shared by all?
(b.) Too much structure: Factory Model (Christensen) aka Taylorism. The industrial revolution supplanted the intended course. 'Culture of Teaching' is very much focused on process and means of education, not the outcomes. 'Culture of learning' is very much blocked by a focus on students as "products" or "customers", not "people"
(c.) Struggle to Sustain Parent Engagement? (Vending Machine Mentality). Recent writing by Tim O'Reilly indicates society has outsourced education to government; money goes in, educated students come out. Do parents no longer have a role to make education a priority? Model: meeting family needs.
(f.) Community Mandate (reflect Socio-Economic Factors). Schools don't act independently. They need community and voter support. But we believe strong local values and culture can overpower dysfunctional systemic ones. Model: community involvement.
(g.) Need Diversity of Learning Environments. Need for multiple models, to function in diverse communities, with diverse cultures and requirements.
(h.) Important to Model Success. Want to look at successful models: Finland, HCZ to understand why certain innovations are so effective over others
(i) Understanding Culture in Public Edu context. "Learning Culture" defines values. Values shape objectives. Objectives drive behavior. Behavior leads to outcomes.
State Departments of Education