Part 4: The Future of Education, March 2023 Edition

In Part 3, we continued to dig into what matters most to parents, where they’re sending their children, and what a future education system might need to look like.

Now, onto action: ideas are ideas, action make ideas real. What are educators, education leaders, and education policy leaders doing about it?

Welcome to Part 4: The Future of Education, March 2023 Edition.

How is the Education Sector responding?

What I’ve unpacked in my previous emails are significant headwinds. I must be honest and say that for the most part, the education sector is not responding with a level of urgency, intensity, and redesign in proportion to the need. Systems are focused on improving what currently exists – but rarely rethinking “school,” “system,” or “education” from the ground up. In his rebuke, David Brooks says in the article I referenced on Monday, that “Parents are rethinking, but the nation’s leaders seem blissfully unaware. Given the alarming statistics I’ve just cited, you would think that education would be one of the most talked about subjects in America right now.”

Action is necessary. And while it is far and few between, action is occurring, and key organizations are supporting:

• The Vela Education Fund supports everyday entrepreneurs who are bolding reimagining education. This includes microschool leaders, pod leaders, local community leaders, and so much more. Great Hearts Nova has received the Vela Bridge Grant – their largest grant in the maximum amount – two years in a row.
• Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance was dedicated to “Emerging School Models” this past fall, highlighting hybrid homeschooling, virtual education, ESAs, instructional technology, CTE, and microschools. Great Hearts Nova was featured in the Virtual Schools panel at Harvard this past fall.
• The YASS STOP Prize celebrates the country’s education provider that best demonstrates STOP principles: Sustainable, Transformative, Outstanding, Permissionless. In conjunction with The YASS Prize, the STOP Awards initiative provides over $20M in support annually to honor educators who achieve excellence. Great Hearts Nova was a quarterfinalist this past year and received $100k in funding.
• Michael B. Horn, a leading innovation education, award-winning author, co-founder and distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and organization adviser, wrote “From Reopen to Reinvent: (Re)creating School for Every Child” and has been championing education innovation for over 15 years. He’s leading the charge in supporting and championing the transformation of education.
• Travis Pillow from the Center for Reinventing Public Education wrote an interesting piece a few weeks ago about “horizontal learning organizations.” He writes that “Great Hearts Nova is at the vanguard of a new trend in education that accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic: Organizations that use online learning as the central nervous system for a variety of learning environments that share their educational philosophy.”
• Kerry McDonald, author of “Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Education Children Outside the Conventional Classroom” is regularly researching and highlighting proof points around the country in her “LiberatED” podcast.

Who is doing this work alongside us? Who is “in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually drive to do the deeds”? President Theodore Roosevelt paints the picture of those “daring greatly” in the arena. Here are some of the many excellent organizations working in the arena to address this very need:

• Kaipod led by Amar Kumar
• STEMuli led by Taylor Shead
• Prenda led by Kelly Smith
• Rock by Rock led by Sung-Ae Yang and Jeff Imrich
• Hallcraft School Studio led by Graham Frey
• Colossal Academy led by Shiren Rattigan
• Higher Ground Education led by Ray Girn
• Odyssey led by Joe Connor
• Sprattronics Learning Lab led by Preston Spratt
• Upsmith led by Wyatt Smith
• Optima Classical Online led by Adam Mangana and Erica
• Black Mothers Forum led by Janelle Wood
• Soaring Education Services led by Jack Preus
• Dallas Hybrid Prep led by Olga Romero
• Student First Technologies led by Mark Duran
• ASU Digital led by Julie Young
• Labster led by Michael Bodekaer Jensen
• Sora Schools led by Garrett Smiley
• Modulo led by Manisha Snoyer
• The Oakland Reach led by Lakisha Young
• TomoClub led by Manik Mehta
• Moonrise led by Chris Turner

Connected to all of this is the policy solution of Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs. Jay Greene, Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Education Policy, said at the Great Hearts Symposium two weeks ago that there are currently “four states with universal ESAs, and by the end of this legislative session is it possible that we will have twelve. My over / under is on eight.”

Thank you to these organizations and many others for being in the arena with us! More on what we’re doing here at Great Hearts Nova tomorrow –

Kurtis