The more time I spend with education leaders looking to reinvent, remake, renew, rethink the K-12 education system, the more I struggle to find ways to convince them that the organizations and systems committed to learning and development outside of K-12 are too important to ignore.
Teachers, administrators and learning and development researchers readily acknowledge that out-of-school time and youth development organizations — museums, libraries, service corps, summer youth employment, STEM and arts programs, sports — excel at providing relationship-rich, interest-driven opportunities to connect and contribute. Opportunities that youth and families value. But these huge benefits are discounted if not dismissed by the introduction of a simple question: Students are clearly engaged, but are they really learning?
There is growing momentum in the fields of both education and youth development to tackle the most pressing challenge faced by our public education system: our country’s centuries-long insistence on equating learning with seat time and the didactic, single-subject teaching methods associated with it. Even the most progressive advocates of learner-centered, competency-based, open-walled education tend to quietly question whether we can achieve the academic rigor we want by giving teachers and learners more agency.
[Related: Expanding horizons, essential relationships — The evidence of afterschool impacts]
Case in point: a four-minute video clip from XQ Institute shows what a teacher had to do to convince her ninth grade class — excited but also concerned about the freedom associated with project-based learning — that they were actually learning the content required by their standardized state test. Spoiler: 10 weeks into the semester the class aced the end of the year exam with scores of 90% or higher. Watch The Test to get a glimpse of these mindset shifts in action.
The “seat time equals course credit” system holding us back was created in 1892 by the “Committee of 10” — 10 white, male education leaders, the majority from elite colleges — to create a standardized way of assessing college readiness. But these colleges are increasingly threatened by students and families that are foregoing degrees from elite institutions in lieu of more affordable, relevant credentials from a host of other higher education industry disrupters.
Michael Horn, cofounder and chair of The Christensen Institute, recently published an article, Why ‘higher ed’ will thrive as it gets disrupted, that anyone concerned about the future of our young people should read. Horn is a co-author (with Clay Christensen) of the original research on disruptive innovation, so his assessment carries weight. Horn’s forecast for higher ed in a nutshell:
”… demand is now softening, prices have stabilized and even fallen, and institutions with expensive cost structures are in a perilous state as their business models are under pressure; higher education may be poised to welcome a host of new disruptive entrants.
“…’higher education’ as a sector will survive and may even thrive. But the nature of the actors within the sector will also look quite different.”
Horn estimates that at least 25% of existing institutions will close. The elite will continue to exist in their present form because their value is based on rejection rates. Many will change how they operate as newly accredited institutions enter the sector. The pace of new entrants will increase because new accreditors are being created in response to an alternative value proposition focused on democratizing higher education. His example: the Postsecondary Commission established by the University of North Carolina system “to accredit entrants that are laser-focused on securing a positive return on investment for students. This will create an incentive to not just focus on student outcomes post-college, but also on making the institutions more affordable with lower cost structures.”
Horn’s arguments for why higher ed may thrive through disruption helped me zoom in on a source of my concerns about why K-12 may falter:
- The definition of higher education has been effectively expanded to include post-secondary credentials and pathways beyond those offered by four-year colleges. So the new disrupters, while outside of the traditional academy, are included in the broader definition of the higher education sector that is diversifying in response to consumer demands for better return on investment on their individual investments inside of a market-based higher education system.
- The definition of K-12 education, in contrast, has not been broadened. Promising disrupters in community-based learning and workforce development are not seen as being in the same sector. They have different value propositions, operating models and funding structures. They prioritize different, if overlapping, populations within the K-16 age group. But, most importantly, they operate in a tight market that cannot compete with K-12’s free, mandatory position.
The sands are shifting rapidly, but at present K-12 education receives the lion’s share of public funding and maintains control over academic credentials. The public and private community organizations that support voluntary, interest-driven learning (e.g., afterschool programs, summer camps, libraries) operate on a mix of public, philanthropic and fee-for-service funding. Opportunities for young people preparing to enter the workforce (e.g., internships and apprenticeships, service corps, industry-specific training programs) are funded through different public funding streams, are supplemented by businesses, families and student loans, and grant a range of credentials recognized by businesses.
As a consequence, these three systems are being pushed to solve seemingly different problems that are actually manifestations of the same root cause: our shared inability to reimagine learning and education in the 21st century.
The Alliance for Youth Thriving’s push to define and promote full day, year-round learning ecosystems that extend into young adulthood is on the right track. But it may not be sufficient as the K-12 system comes under increased pressure to respond to the most visible problems in the most traditional ways, especially with market driven forces increasingly at play. How do we come to see the other major systems focused on the learning and development of youth and young adults as productive disruptors and positive contributors to a reimagined K-12 system? We must recognize them as complementary systems that are not only too important to ignore but equally essential in scaffolding our way to the future of education. A future in which joyful, engaged learning is understood as the key — no matter which door you are walking through.
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In her columns, Karen Pittman is exploring the research behind the statement, “When Youth Thrive, We All Thrive.”
