School & System Design: The Need and the Opportunity

Why Focus on School and System Design?

The industrial model of most America classrooms, schools, and systems is increasingly unsuited to the needs of today’s students. The world has shifted dramatically—and an equally dramatic shift is needed in educational expectations and schooling in order to prepare American students for success in college, in careers, and as citizens. To raise the bar in education for all students—particularly in math and science—will require that we “do school differently” and design schooling around meeting students’ needs.

Growing numbers of innovators from schools, systems, non-profits, and for-profits—individually and in partnership—are designing programs and schools around student success. They are setting high expectations for students and piloting new ways to help students succeed by personalizing every aspect of the learning experience including pace, content, modality, and where and when instruction takes place. Those with the most effective models are looking to replicate; however the scale of their reach at this early stage remains limited.

In its 2009 report, The Opportunity Equation, the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education highlighted the imperative to design schools and school systems for mathematics and science achievement. The Commission’s recommendations include “doing school differently” in the following ways:

• Build high expectations for student achievement in mathematics and science into school and classroom culture and operations as a pathway to college and careers

• Enhance systemic capacity to support strong schools and act strategically to turn around or replace ineffective schools

• Tap a wider array of resources to increase educational assets and expand research and development capacity

Progress in the Field

To “do school differently,” we need systems-level change—new practices in our schools and classrooms, new mechanisms to test and scale effective approaches, and a greater receptivity to innovation throughout our educational system. We can learn from some exemplary schools and programs that take innovative approaches to meeting the needs of students through the use of time, money, people, technology, and instruction. Considerations that go into their designs include the following:

• Time: How much time do students spend in their classrooms, schools, or other educational settings, and is it enough? How is that time distributed? Are opportunities to build STEM skills maximized? How are students, teachers, and leaders using time creatively to enrich learning?
• Money: How flexible is the use of funds? Who makes decisions regarding how money is spent? How do those decisions advance the learning of individual students and of students overall? What is their impact on particular classrooms or schools?
• People: Who participates in the learning environment, and what roles do they play (e.g., content delivery, intervention, management of online learning, monitor)? Who is held accountable for student achievement gains? How are people managed and compensated? How do management decisions affect student learning? Does system- and school-level leadership share a common vision? Do policies support principals in placing high-caliber and flexible adults in learning environments?
• Technology: What role does technology play in learning and teaching? What technology could be introduced to individualize learning, help educators access and share resources, and raise student learning outcomes?
• Instruction: Do students advance based on seat-time requirements or mastery of skills and content? Are assessments used solely to measure mastery, or also to inform instruction regularly? Is instruction face-to-face or online? Is content delivered in a modality that best meets each student’s individual needs?

Some innovative models, such as New Tech Network’s STEM-focused schools and High Tech High, are explicitly designed around STEM. Science, technology, engineering, and math are the core around which the curriculum, instruction, partnerships, and career /post-secondary exploration are designed. These models use STEM to engage students in rigorous, project-based learning that prepares all students for post-secondary success, whether or not they decide to enter STEM fields.

Looking Ahead

Improving the performance of American students and ensuring a high-quality education for all is possible only by upgrading the U.S. educational system’s capacity to innovate: by getting smarter about developing and testing new ideas, tapping and advancing professional knowledge, putting best practices to use, and harnessing technology to personalize learning and more effectively track and analyze data. It will take innovators, but it will also take those who can implement, replicate, scale, and support what works for system-wide change to enable all students to reach their potential.

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