Hey everyone - your companies are among the most innovative in education so I'm curious to get your perspective on what's currently broken in education. More importantly, how are these problems currently being solved by your companies and how will education evolve in the next 5-10 years. Thanks for participating!

Everything.

one of the major issues in education that has emerged with the internet age is how starkly vertical and silo'd traditional K-12 programs look in comparison to the world wide web.

more than any other place, the internet lets various areas of interest and study collide to enable new forms of expression, discovery, and application.

this sort of horizontal learning, based more around personal curiosity and reflection, stands more or less in stark contrast to K-12 standard tests and curriculums.

the best analogy is that K-12 edu in the US is like trying to get a kid to memorize a printed encyclopedia subject by subject in a wikipedia / google world.

failures to anticipate and utilize the internet are tied not just to the government, but to the deeply incentivized industries of text book publishers, universities and higher education, conservative agendas against funding new but unproven teaching methodologies, and a generation gap filled with decision makers who still believe that the best way to create bright industrious minds is to train them like robots.

Every time someone uses the word "broken" in the same sentence as "education," a teacher sours to the conversation around improvements. Yes, there are problems. But in a country where we dramatically underpay (and undervalue) teachers, I think we need to better craft our dialogue to ensure we're not (inadvertently) lumping criticism on the already overburdened backs of teachers.

I think we need to do several things, and these are only a start:
1. Shift focus away from "education" and toward "learning." Education is formal, finite, and institutional; learning is lifelong. It should be a way of life, not merely a system of certification.
2. Involve more stakeholders in the conversation. Hackers alone aren't going to "disrupt" education. If we really want to make drastic improvements in the way we educate children, then we need everyone in the conversation: teachers, administrators, students, parents, hackers, policymakers, employers, and more.
3. Research and integrate the cognitive sciences. The technologies we use today are literally changing the way our brains are wired. We must adapt the tools we use to learn.

I *hope* that the next five to ten years usher in:
- reduced costs associated with education and learning, both on the provider and consumer sides;
- increased (if not universal) access to educational content and learning technologies;
- truly personalized learning;
- alternative forms of certification;
and
- most importantly, a reduction in the politicization of the dialogue around education. It's too important a topic to be so virulently partisan.

Also, I love this infographic forecast for the future of edtech: fastcoexist.com

Let's not forget to include two very important topics in the conversation... allowing children to play and encouraging it as an important part of learning... and fostering, instead of stifling, creativity. Also one more (now that I think of it and a part of creativity)... allowing our children to embrace failure as a part of reaching beyond their grasp and innovating for the future.

We need to teach children how to learn. As an adult i am not continuously learning things i may never find a use for. I find tutorials, read and learn when i have the need to.

We have a saying here in NZ "He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata." or "What is the most important thing? It is people, it is people, it is people".

Pedagogy and Technology *are important* but - as this article from HuffPo illustrates (including links to sources) class size is critical huffingtonpost.com

It's hard to avoid the inference that if our Teachers - their quality, continual improvement, empathy, time with students - are working, then our education system will be.

The most broken part of education is tying property taxes to school funding. A child's education is linked to the value of their parent's home? Discrimination is one word for it.

Love your point Dan. I used to tell my girls, when they were younger, that the point of what they were doing in school was to learn how to earn, and not worry about grades at that point. I feel it that is incredibly overlooked in the race to get funding via standardized testing.

I think by showing students the benefits of learning, accomplishing a task, learning a new skill, overcoming a problem. We will encourage lifelong learners. Theres is nothing better than find a solution to a problem yourself.

I tend to agree with most of what has been said, but I think no one has put nearly enough emphasis on a very important point:

I think teachers — early on — must help students realize that school is actually just a stepping stone, and not the final destination. Ultimately, what is learned in school will permeate and define the rest of your life. This might sound silly for people who are past that, but for most current students, school is actually their whole reason of existence.

Also, I think most systems hold a lot of remarkable people back. That's the reason there are self-taught programmers and self-taught artists: the system won't adapt to the individual's skills, potential and interests.

Make education more accessible, more affordable, and more available. While learning has become all those things, education itself -- which is still valuable for a number of reasons including credentialing, mentorship, and feedback -- education as an industry (especially higher ed) is becoming less affordable and accessible for lower and middle-class families. Some would say we need to unbundle education: edumorphology.com Ultimately, many are dedicating their lives around the world to the teaching and mentoring of our students; I wholly agree with Heather that the movement needs more humility and less hype and histrionics.

I agree that school should be, and used to be, a means to and end. However today, after grade school, college and graduate school are the norm and it seems that school IS the life of many students. After 30+ years of school, adults are entering the work place with excellent test-taking skills but no real-world experience.

It's important to remember that education is different in different countries. I can't speak for others but, I'll make some points for India having studied here all through. The Indian education system, while considered to be one of the most rigorous around the world misses some very important important aspects of learning.

Here, education focuses heavily on theory with very little practical application. I remember that memorizing concepts among fellow students was a very common thing. Beyond examination, most of these students don't understand the practical applications of the theory they memorized. The system focuses on results and only that. We need more practical learning. Many Indian students lack basic social skills that's required.

@Nagarjun Agreed! Education systems in each country can be very different. Contrasts South Korea - India - New Zealand - China - USA... et al.

Maybe we should branch this - I suspect the original questioner was more focused on the US system and on investment opportunities that may "solve them" :)

@Donald, just thinking the same thing for different reasons. This is too large a topic to be one branch. However, here goes. Regarding technology, let's not forget that every new technology was seen as one that would transform education; this was true for radio and television before computers appeared. There's a great parable, arguing that writing was going to destroy education because students would no longer be forced to memorize but would instead get lazy by being able to take notes and read things. But I digress. The point is that every technology was going to transform education and none have. We're still educating students with a 100 y.o. system for an industrial economy that doesn't exist and using testing in ways never intended.

Part 2: Many if not most teachers know this, but are increasingly constrained by canned curricula that can literally dictate every word they say in class, all in the false name of being "scientifically proven to increase test scores." When I first got into this field in the 1990s there were great things happening at the confluence of technology and innovative/disruptive curriculum design. But with No Child Left Behind, that all went away. That's why so many experienced teachers are leaving the profession, they're no longer allowed to teach. We (professional educators) know what works, but no one ever asks us. We know about brain-based learning, constructivism, etc., but today's environment makes that impossible for most schools.

I think one of the issues is that children are taught mostly by strangers. Parents are rarely in community with their children's educators.

This is new to the world. Only about 100 years old and significantly more common here than in over half of the world's population.

At City Leadership I often teach that "Trust=Efficiency"

Community creates trust.

We live in connection. Connection creates insecurity.

In my opinion, informal learnings (non-scholar) are the most important knowledges today. At school, you learn how to succeed at tests, prepared by a teacher and not related to a job/life situation or a research/experimental environment. Today we have instantly access to the biggest library humanity have ever built, and find so many interesting topic you will never discover in a normal classroom. The process to pick some topic for at least 1 year, and try a new class if it doesn't fit you is long and inefficient. We should try a startup-like process. try a lot of different topics in few weeks, chose somes that interrest you the most, refine those topics, refine again, etc. Until you find what is the most important/passionating to you.

… And because learning is a life long process (I don't want to reduce Education to school), and diplomas only represent knowledges at a specific moment of your life, a digital/on-line platform tracking your knowledges, no matter the subject, could be created. A place where people can share and find ressources related to a topic ( or linked to inter-disciplinary topics ).

School is an industrial way to get knowledges, when learning should be a life-long journey through all the topics existing.
Passion is the key to learn quickly and practice by your own.

This school is doing a great job facebook.com
If you are in Stockholm and have the opportunity to visit them, you should discuss with the team.

Education is broken by at least two criteria.

a) Education doesn't teach people
i) Education doesn't teach good/enough information
ii) Education doesn't teach life lessons/fulfillment
b) Education doesn't lead to work
i) Education doesn't help find fulfilling work
ii) Education doesn't qualify you for work that provides financial stability

The things that I'm seeing attack at least part b) in the most promising way are things like Hacker School/Code Academy/CUNY Advanced Software Development Program. With over 9% unemployment in the city and about 1,000 digital firms hiring, addressing the need for great developers in a way that ignores/bypasses the traditional (and broken) education system.

Another problem within education is staff training / learning.

As a designer i am constantly learning, attending conferences and working with new groups. Its strange that teachers are not given more time to learn. How can they teach if they have forgotten how to learn?

Companies like google give employers one day a week to work on their own projects - imagine if we could do that with teachers. Dedicated time to work together, learn, try new things, discover.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
– Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta.

@Dan, right on the button. In other countries (to whom we tend to compare unfavorably in education) teachers often have an hour or more a day for planning, often collaboratively with teachers at same grade/subject level. Not in this country; no planning time is generally the rule. So teachers have to use their own time if they want to plan.

That's aside from the time wasted at what is usually useless "professional development", generally mandated by the district to promote an administrator's latest pet project, not something teachers would actually want and use. (I used to provide this with technology, and always strove to ensure what I provided would be relevant and usable by teachers immediately in the classroom.)

Hypothesis: the education system is 'broken' when it conflates learning, training, and accreditation. Reflecting on the great ideas in this thread (from @Heather, @Dan, @Kara, @Kevin), I noticed this common theme.

On their own, these three aspects of education are useful and necessary components of a healthy society. When we expect schools to provide all three under the same roof, however, we end up getting them confused with each other, and it dilutes the potency of each.

I've found that talks about reforming education tend to orbit around just one of these components. What if we approached the question of 'fixing' education differently, asking instead whether the school is the appropriate vehicle to fill these three societal needs?

Hello All, today I have read with pleasure a post from Bill Gates:
I am pleased to share his optimism and wish address about coming back to school period

thegatesnotes.com

KR Aldo

Without voicing the most unpopular opinion in this thread ever, I think it isn't necessarily accurate to say that there is nothing redeemable or of value left in the current education system.

For instance, having enough people in my life involved on many levels of education, the individuals out there care about those they are charged with educating, which is, to me, actually the most important piece of the entire system.

This is far from universal, I know, and you can get into all kinds of negative lines of conversation around the evils of unionized teaching leading to apathy, but I personally don't remember having all that many teachers along the way that fell into that category - that was the exception, not the rule...

And, really, the only certainty with whatever new path that gets blazed is that there will need to be some system around it, and all systems have exceptions - you can't escape the reality of unplanned variances.

I can't speak to education anywhere else than where I have been or know people involved, but the raw materials are, in fact, already there. I think instead of blaming the system for not fitting every individual learner's needs (a lot of people still thank their teachers for giving them direction and purpose, don't they?), or for not being a sparkling yellow brick road to happiness and financial security unto itself, a sense of personal responsibility for our own educations and future has to be adopted as well...

I really think there needs to be a balance between the idea that we need to provide the best possible resources for future success to our children, and teaching them early and often that you won't get anywhere in life without taking responsibility, making decisions for yourself, and actively seeking out what you want.

Regarding teachers. I *believe* there are teachers everywhere ready to teach young fellows their way. Many professional workers are also sharing knowledge freely these days.

However these teachers are probably not gonna do so in present-day school setting. Think teacher salaries, school politics and you get the idea.

If we enable and empower these teachers, and also allow the students to escape the current lumped-together education plans I think it will all work out well.

More specifically, education should be more specialized and students (and parents) should have more choice intead of the standard one-size-fits-all system. (K12 or otherwise)

In short, untie teachers from the school and the platform. Let there be a market.