You Earned a Ticket!
Which school do you want to support?
Reform advocates periodically call for the education system to be “blown up.” Others smile, or grimace.
In This Lesson
How big is California's education system?
How many students are in school?
How difficult is it to change the education system?
★ Discussion Guide
Education is big
Most calls to "blow up" the education system generally paint over the question of scale. Perhaps because classrooms are small, it is hard to internalize the reality that America’s education system is big. Really, really big. Giant, actually. In rough numbers, the 2020 census counted nearly 8 million students in preschool and kindergarten alone. About 50 million more attend grades 1 through 12. Another 20 million or so are enrolled in college or graduate education. Just in the K-12 grades, America employs approximately 3.6 million teachers, and spends well over half a trillion dollars per year. These are big numbers, certainly. But are they bigger than other big things in America? For example:
- Q1: Which does America have more of: teachers or soldiers?
- Q2: Does America have more schools or Starbucks?
Roughly a quarter of America's population is currently enrolled in school.
The answers are not close. America has far more teachers than soldiers, even if you count teachers sparingly and soldiers generously. There are about ten schools for every Starbucks.
Big systems don't change quickly - at least not without destructive consequences.
Change is inevitable
Nevertheless, if there is consensus about anything in education, it is that change is both necessary and inevitable. Many classrooms still look about like they did fifty years ago. Is it really imaginable that students will still sit in rows, doing the same workbooks at the same time 50 years from now?
The world’s best teachers of many subjects are only a click away. When students really want to know something, they Google it. When they want to learn how to do something, they turn to YouTube.
Public education has changed more over time than most people realize. Lesson 1.7 discusses some of the major themes of the last 100 years of education change in America, particularly the developing ideal of "universal" education. The challenge, of course, is that big ideas and major changes unfold over time. Kids grow up waiting on the world to change, including the world of school.
Systems resist change
Change tends to happen slowly in education. At least three kinds of inertia keep change from happening quickly.
Policy inertia. Many aspects of education are governed by detailed laws, for reasons good and bad. The workings of governments tend to be slow, and movements toward change in one area can be blocked by opposition in another. In 2009, policy gridlock in California had become so frustrating that a movement led by the Bay Area Council called for a California Constitutional Convention. The basic idea was to provoke a bold rethinking of the policy apparatus of the state. A related suggestion "in the mix" at the time called for the entire California education code to be scheduled to “sunset” over a period of years.
Organizational inertia. The "ecosystem" of education includes many participants with different perspectives, such as teachers, parents, students, businesses, unions, and taxpayers. Changes that require policy action must survive the policy process. Even at the nominal "end" of a policy decision process, changes only affect students to the extent that they are carried out.
Human inertia. A new set of standards does not automatically change lesson plans, or the materials a teacher uses to explain an idea to students. Just because a teacher receives new software does not mean that he or she wants to use it, or knows how. In many schools, teachers feel that they are expected to work miracles with nothing but chalk and charm; they are naturally disposed to proceed with caution when presented with the latest shiny idea.
Clearly, big systems don’t tend to change spontaneously. In education, what are the conditions that can overcome inertia and make change happen? The next two lessons examine two competing ideas about the role of resources in education change. Would efforts for change be better served by massive investment or by a tightened belt?
Updated December 2024
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Questions & Comments
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Sonya Hendren June 11, 2020 at 12:45 am
Now is the time to make big changes!
Sonya Hendren June 11, 2020 at 12:42 am
Mary Perry June 25, 2014 at 10:59 am
For the urgency part, I like this article, http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/employers-challenge-to-educators-make-school-relevant-to-students-lives/ that challenges educators to make school more relevant. It really puts students at the center of the question of education change -- right where they should be.
The article was posted on Mindshift (at http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift ) which provides a wealth of ideas -- from many different points of view -- about what's possible.
Here's how the Mindshift blog describes itself: "Launched in 2010 by KQED and NPR, MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions, covering cultural and technology trends, innovations in education, groundbreaking research, education policy, and more." Credible source and challenging ideas. It's worth a look.
Sonya Hendren September 2, 2018 at 7:54 pm
Gisele Huff May 20, 2011 at 9:43 am
As someone who has been in the trenches for more than 12 years, I am no longer talking about reforming education but about transforming it. As a matter of fact, I am no longer talking about education but about learning. That shift in vocabulary places focus squarely on the child and not on the adults or the system. In that space, personalized, differentiated learning rules and can only be delivered through technology.
In my view, learning should be bifurcated between content and pedagogy. Children learn content on the computer, adaptively, at their own pace. The software tracks their progress, evaluates their performance, intervenes when necessary, and creates a profile of their activities that is instantaneously available to the teacher through a dashboard. The teacher is Socrates, helps the students connect the dots and go deeper into the material they have learned on the computer.
In this scenario, as it is practiced at the Carpe Diem School in Yuma, AZ and at two 5th grade and two 7th grade classes in the Los Altos School District that use a Khan Academy math curriculum, the teacher has much more time to spend with each student individually. Not having the responsibility for imparting content to a group of children with varying abilities and particular learning problems, the teacher can now personalize the necessary intervention on the spot, as it were. No one falls through the cracks, no stitch is dropped.
That is the future of learning and the salvation of this country if we are to continue competing in the global economy.
Mamabear April 12, 2015 at 2:25 pm
See below:
use a Khan Academy math curriculum, the teacher has much more time to spend with each student individually. Not having the responsibility for imparting content to a group of children with varying abilities and particular learning problems, the teacher can now personalize the necessary intervention on the spot, as it were. No one falls through the cracks, no stitch is dropped
Caryn-C September 18, 2017 at 10:59 am