7.
LIFELONG LEARNING
“To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the first duty of the educator.”
MARIA MONTESSORI1
Education has long been a passion of mine. In addition to devoting most of my time to reading, studying, and experimenting—both on the job and at home—I have long sought to help others discover and develop their aptitudes through learning and application, as I did mine. This began by responding to requests to speak on college campuses in my late twenties and quickly developed into providing support for educational initiatives, something I’ve done ever since.
When I think of education, I recall a young woman I met through Youth Entrepreneurs, a program my wife and I founded about 30 years ago in Wichita. We were at a banquet celebrating students who had submitted exceptional business plans. The story of the top winner, April, was unforgettable. She reinforced our view of how broken the education system is—and the path to fix it.
April told us of her troubled life growing up. She came from a dysfunctional family and lived in a dangerous neighborhood. Early in life, she resigned herself to a bleak future.
Education is supposed to be the great uplifter, the means by which even the least fortunate and most disadvantaged can find a path to success. Yet what April experienced at her school gave her little reason for hope. The rote courses and tests had little relevance to her life and failed to awaken her abilities. She quickly checked out in school, failing essentially everything.
One day, enrolling in her junior year, April heard about a class that offered her the opportunity to make some money. And so she signed up for Youth Entrepreneurs.
Liz and I started YE, as we call it, because we knew kids in Wichita who were in situations similar to April’s. They mostly came from troubled neighborhoods, and while they clearly had potential, they struggled to find it in the typical classroom setting. To change that, we decided to invest in a program run by a national foundation based on core economic and entrepreneurial concepts. We adapted that core curriculum so it better resonated with students, which enabled it to show improved results. We started by supporting a single teacher—Matt Silverthorne—in one of Wichita’s toughest schools. (Matt is still with the program to this day.)
The course allows students to lead the way. They engage in stock-market and trading games, with all the chaos that entails. They are encouraged to find what they enjoy most and to see if they can turn it into a business. “Market Day” is everyone’s favorite. The school dedicates one lunch hour for the class to show their wares to the entire student body.
Then comes the hard part: writing a plan for a real business. When that’s completed, it’s up to the student to present it to the class. The plan that is voted best wins a choice of capital for a start-up or money to use toward the cost of college. The whole program gives students the freedom to develop their ideas and pursue their passions in a highly individualized setting.
This approach made all the difference for April, who had won the semester of the banquet. Initially motivated by the promise of seed capital, the rest was up to her. She needed to learn how to succeed in business, which in turn meant learning what she was good at and what she wasn’t.
As she explained to the crowd of parents, teachers, and supporters at the banquet, she saw the value in learning specific skills. To write a business plan and pitch it to others, she needed to do well in English. To keep the books and turn a profit, she needed to learn math. She also learned the importance of treating customers with respect, causing a shift in her entire attitude toward those around her.
The more she learned, the more she came to chart her own course. Where once education had been imposed on her, now she was driving it herself—a chance that made all the difference. She told the banquet attendees that her failing grades turned into straight A’s. By the time we met, she was well on her way to a life of contribution and fulfillment. I’m told that after college, she started her own consulting business.
I don’t tell this story to tout Youth Entrepreneurs. The real takeaway is why it helped April—and why the current education system fails so many others.
THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION
The goal of education is simple: self-actualization.
By helping students identify their gifts, develop them into valued skills, and apply them to benefit themselves and others, a good education enables people to have the best possible life and contribute to the creation of the best possible society. When students learn that the way to succeed is to create value for others, it changes the entire culture from one of conflict to one of mutual benefit.
This is true for all levels and kinds of education, including K–12, trade schools, universities, and beyond. Indeed, lifelong learning is essential to a good life, as I can attest, and as I hope this book demonstrates.
Yet if the goal really is to help students realize their potential, then American education is clearly falling short. It is an injustice holding back millions of people.
By high school graduation, many (if not most) students have little clue what gifts they have, what motivates them, and how they can succeed. They aren’t contribution motivated. They’re often not motivated at all. Only a third of students say they’re “engaged” by the time they reach twelfth grade.2
LIZ KOCH
WHY WE STARTED YOUTH ENTREPRENEURS
LIZ AND I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR 48 YEARS. SHE LED THE FOUNDING OF YOUTH ENTREPRENEURS IN 1991.
The idea for Youth Entrepreneurs didn’t come from a classroom or a teacher or a textbook or anything like that. It came out of Charles’s and my desire to help our son, Chase, get to know a much more diverse group of kids than he was meeting at Collegiate, the private school he was attending.
So at age eight, we signed him up for the Salvation Army’s Biddy Basketball program. He got on a team consisting largely of kids from tough neighborhoods who were very good players. As a result, Chase spent most of his time on the bench. But he became friends with several of his teammates, many of whom had obvious gifts beyond basketball.
We believed a number of them would benefit from attending Collegiate, so we tried to talk their parents into applying. We offered to arrange scholarships, but it was a tough sell, and we were only successful with a couple.
Nevertheless, the Salvation Army’s program was beneficial. It helped keep the kids out of trouble. It helped them begin to believe they could succeed, learn to play by the rules, and develop relationships with others from very different backgrounds.
As a result, I went on the board of the local Salvation Army, after which I became chairman and led a major fundraiser. It was so successful that I was invited to join the national board. These experiences began to teach me what it took to enable someone growing up in a destructive environment to realize their potential, and they motivated me to do more.
Meanwhile, at Koch Industries, Charles was witnessing the good results of teaching people how to unlock their talents and use them to help others through business.
As a high-school student in Youth Entrepreneurs, Toiya Smith learned problem-solving skills and now applies them to her passion for improving the criminal justice system. (2017, Texas)
Madison Jacques founded her school’s first student-run coffee shop, a business she created as part of the Youth Entrepreneurs program. (Topeka, 2019)
Then it hit me: What if we created a course that combined the two, using the approach of the Salvation Army and the concepts and methods of Principled EntrepreneurshipTM?
I figured such a course could integrate theory and practice, show kids that they have talent, and be fun and rewarding at the same time. This led us to look for an inner-city public high school where we could start.
Our first course was at North High in Wichita, Kansas. Most of the kids who signed up came from troubled backgrounds. We got to know many of them, and I started to see why they struggled in school. Their classes didn’t really help them discover who they were and what gifts they had, much less how to develop themselves.
Until they found Youth Entrepreneurs.
When they got to put their own plans into action, they felt empowered. They were free to create their own business plan and try to make it work. It made them see learning in a new light—one that was practical and tailored to their own talents and interests.
From the very start, YE was a big success, because the kids loved it and learned from it. For many, it was their first experience of being in control and trusted to chart their own course.
This is why Youth Entrepreneurs has grown. It has helped thousands, and soon, we hope, millions.
— LIZ KOCH
Learn more about how Youth Entrepreneurs empowers students at BelieveInPeopleBook.com/stories
Even fewer learn what they’re being taught. The most recent federal data show that only 25 percent of twelfth-grade students are proficient at math.3 The numbers are slightly better for reading, where 37 percent of students are proficient—still a far cry from success.4
Keep in mind: these numbers tell us nothing about students’ unique abilities. It stands to reason that an even smaller percentage of students leave the K–12 system with any sense of their best path.
Sure enough, the early untaught lessons hold students back later in life. One recent study found that a quarter of college freshmen need remedial classes, meaning their previous schooling failed to prepare them.5
Within the graduation rate itself is another sign of the slide toward a two-tiered society. In the strongest communities, only 5 percent of people failed to graduate from high school. In troubled communities, that figure climbs to nearly 25 percent.6 Even this doesn’t begin to describe the disparity, as a high school diploma is no indication of a student’s progress in self-actualizing.
It keeps getting worse. Higher education is hardly the solution to the problems that start in the K–12 system. The National Association of Colleges and Employers asked businesses to rank college graduates on eight measures of career readiness. In five categories, fewer than half of graduates were deemed ready for employment. In the best category, businesses felt that only 77 percent of graduates were adequately prepared to join the workforce.7 It was the only passing grade among all eight categories—a C grade. Businesses spend billions each year helping new workers learn the basic skills they didn’t get in school.8
Unsurprisingly, a growing number of people now wonder if higher education is worth it. One recent poll found that only half of Americans think a college education is very important, down from 70 percent in 2013.9 Millions of students go to college every year, not because they see the benefit but because they’ve been programmed to think it’s the single best next step, and that anything less is a failure.
Higher education is certainly a costly next step. Student debt in America currently totals more than $1.5 trillion—a staggering sum that’s higher than credit card debt and auto loan debt—much of it owed by students who went to college without knowing why or to what end.10 Considering that most graduates doubt the value of their college education, and that so many businesses have to retrain graduates, it seems obvious that most college students are not getting their money’s worth—not even close.
Why does education fail for so many students and at essentially every level? The answer is that American education largely fails to meet students where they are and help them realize who they are. Instead, it pushes students to be something they’re not.
The problems start early. Although there are some bright spots, the K–12 system is typically designed with the average student in mind. But the average student doesn’t exist. No one makes this point better than educational innovator and Social Entrepreneur Todd Rose, author of Dark Horse and The End of Average.
Todd rightly points out that every student’s aptitudes, interests, and abilities are different—often wildly so. This fact notwithstanding, our schools largely treat everyone as if they’re more or less the same. They read the same books, solve the same problems, take the same tests, and tread the same dreary road as everyone else—day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
This is known as standardization, and it is a case study in how one-size-fits-all solutions are inherently harmful.
NO TWO STUDENTS ARE ALIKE
Standardization might make sense for manufacturing car parts or computers, but it does not work well for developing human beings. The educator Maria Montessori had it right when she declared that education ought to “stimulate life, leaving it free … to unfold itself.” Standardization, on the other hand, directs students toward a predetermined end.
Standardization might make sense for manufacturing car parts or computers, but it does not work well for developing human beings.
It necessarily fails to tailor education to each student’s unique aptitudes and needs. Instead of understanding how schooling can benefit them and allow them to experience the joy of learning, students rightly see it as a painful, boring exercise of little value. As April from Youth Entrepreneurs demonstrates, this discourages kids from applying themselves. It also prevents kids from becoming lifelong learners—a crucial factor for long-term success. Standardization is terribly counterproductive.
Standardization also pushes students into a zero-sum game. It ranks kids, putting some at “the top” while declaring that others are at “the bottom.” This says nothing about their unique skills, only that some are better than others on an arbitrary scale. After spending so many years in this harmful system, students often adopt the same zero-sum mentality in life: for me to win, you must lose.
The standardized system is reinforced by policies and practices that stifle competition and innovation. These include caps and moratoriums on new kinds of schools. Another example is the teacher certification process, which forces would-be educators to go through their own process of standardization, limiting their ability to reach students, excel at their careers, and find fulfillment in their own lives.
Absurd outcomes can result. Consider one thought experiment: Does it make sense to you that until recently, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, couldn’t even teach civics at the high school named after her in her home state of Arizona without first going through the state’s laborious certification process? Similarly, in nearly every state, is it right that Bill Gates can’t teach computer science because he doesn’t have the right degrees?11 Not every teacher is going to be Sandra Day O’Connor or Bill Gates, but the lesson still stands: the hostility to the new cuts students off from the improved.
Nor are these issues relegated to K–12. Problems also abound in higher education. The concept of the university has hardly changed in a thousand years. The eleventh-century guild system is alive and well in the twenty-first.
One major problem is the accreditation system, which has morphed from its original intent of ensuring quality to a bureaucratic scheme that determines which schools qualify for federal funding. Without an accreditor’s blessing, a university has little chance of attracting students or even staying in business.
Guess who sits on the accreditation boards? That’s right—the existing universities. Why should accreditors certify innovative schools that would compete with their own employers? Why should colleges and universities experiment with new programs if it puts their accreditation at risk? The incentive is usually to stop a potentially better education in its tracks.
Of course, this is not to say that nothing has changed over the years. For instance, there are now more administrators than educators at the typical U.S. college.12 (The same is true for K–12 schools, where the number of administrators grew eight times faster than the number of students between 1950 and 2009.13) There is no evidence that students benefit from this. There is evidence, however, that without the bureaucratic bloat since 1976, college tuition would be 20 percent cheaper.14
There are many other examples of how education fails students in both K–12 and higher ed. The common thread among all of them is protectionism.
If you recall, protectionism is a hostility to beneficial change. Whether it’s standardization, teacher tenure, or accreditation, protectionism is harming all parties in the education system. It hurts the teachers and administrators who could find more fulfillment helping students succeed. It hurts parents whose kids aren’t developing their abilities. And of course, it hurts millions of students, especially the most disadvantaged.
MORE OF THE STANDARDIZED SAME
Pretty much everyone agrees that American education isn’t working. Only 19 percent of parents give the schooling system either an A or B grade.15 Yet rather than propose or support meaningful changes, most everyone—reformers included—offers just a slight variation on the protectionist model. Instead of empowering students, they demand more control.
For example, many reformers want to increase standardization in the name of accountability and transparency, assuming it will help students succeed while addressing real concerns about the runaway cost of education. People often say that school choice advocates and teachers’ unions want starkly different schooling systems, or that public and private schools have little in common, when in reality their visions for the classroom are remarkably similar.
Consider that standardization was the inspiration behind federal efforts such as No Child Left Behind in the early 2000s (under a Republican, George W. Bush) and Common Core State Standards (originally developed by private philanthropies) and Race to the Top (an Obama administration program) in the 2010s. They all significantly increased standardization in the K–12 system. Facing perpetually disheartening statistics of student achievements, we now hear calls for further standardization at public and charter schools, both from well-meaning government officials and private philanthropists.
There are also loud calls to increase funding for existing schools and models, despite their demonstrated failure to empower students. From 1970 to 2010, total K–12 spending on a per-student basis nearly tripled, with almost nothing to show for it. While fourth- and eighth-grade students saw small improvements in academic achievement, high school students saw none.16 America has spent 150 percent more on schools in exchange for a near 0 percent improvement.17 While some schools may indeed require more money, it makes no sense to spend ever-larger sums on the same failing model in the hope of a better outcome.
Elsewhere, philanthropists and policymakers alike are working to expand charter schools or provide public funding for private school alternatives. This is a source of intense controversy—should we invest in private schools, charter schools, or traditional public schools? But this is a false choice. Any of these options, if done well, will help students. Conversely, any, if done poorly, will harm them. The emphasis should be on what works, not the type of school.
When charter and private schools just replicate the standardized approach, as many do, then students will still struggle to discover who they are, or learn about their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Conversely, I’ve met students from good public schools whose teachers and administrators have been free to tailor their education based on each student’s aptitudes—and they do fine. “School choice” is meaningless if the choices aren’t that different from the status quo. When it comes to choices, parents should be at least as concerned about the quality as the quantity.
Similarly, the serious problems presented by higher education have led to many counterproductive solutions. Free college is a nice sound bite but a shortsighted policy. It would push more students into universities that already fail to prepare them for a lifetime of contribution, while making new and possibly better options less likely to emerge. In a classic example of protectionism, free college would prop up the current higher education model when a deeper transformation is needed.
Ditto student loan forgiveness. It skirts around a real problem—the often astounding cost of college tuition—but doesn’t address it. Just the opposite: it encourages universities to continue raising tuition costs while assuming the government will swoop in when students can’t pay. The schools get their money regardless of the quality of the education they provide and whether it leads to their students’ long-term success, including the ability to pay back their loans. Thus protected from necessary change, student loan forgiveness would further break a broken system.
And yet the institution of education can be fixed—at every level. We don’t have to settle for subpar schools and stagnant universities. Instead, we need education that helps every student unlock their potential.
The type of school, the school buildings, the lesson plans, the teacher credentials—none of it matters as much as each student’s ability to learn in an individualized way.
PUTTING THE “I” IN EDUCATION
A better way is individualized education.
Most of society is moving toward individualization—in medicine, fashion, entertainment, and many other areas where products and services are tailored and curated for each individual. This is the age of Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and a thousand other companies that essentially let you choose your own adventure. It makes no sense that education is going in the opposite direction.
Given each person’s unique talents, education should be among the most customized parts of life. It can be, but that won’t happen by focusing on secondary concerns.
The type of school, the school buildings, the lesson plans, the teacher credentials—none of it matters as much as each student’s ability to learn in an individualized way. When you start with the system, you tend to ignore the student. But when you start with the student, you can avoid rigid systems and pursue a dynamic range of options that meet each person’s unique abilities and motivations. Instead of telling students what to learn and how to learn it, it’s time to let them learn in the ways that are best for them.
Individualized education is the essence of bottom up. Rather than being dictated by experts on high, it empowers students, teachers, administrators, parents, and many others to work collaboratively. Likewise, instead of relentlessly focusing on protecting the current system, it adopts a mentality of openness, embracing the new and recognizing that the old way of doing things can always be improved. The principle of openness is always and everywhere essential to progress, and education is no exception.
Individualized education can happen in any learning setting—public or private, charter or district, parochial or secular, K–12 or collegiate, or vocational. It can also happen outside the traditional classroom. The focus is not on where the education happens but on what the education entails. Prioritizing the needs of each student instead of the type of school is far more likely to help students learn the values and skills necessary for a life of contribution and success.
Youth Entrepreneurs, the program I mentioned at the start of this chapter, is grounded in this philosophy. The whole point of YE is to let students apply themselves in a way that the typical classroom setting doesn’t allow.
Individualized education is the essence of bottom up.
This approach clearly worked for April, and YE works for essentially everyone who participates, because each person’s experience is tailored to their own interests and abilities. The program has now reached over 35,000 students, about 99 percent of whom graduate from high school. Their college graduation rate is 50 percent higher than the national average.
While some of the students’ businesses have become successful in their own right, YE isn’t about starting companies or making money. It’s about introducing the concepts of contribution and lifelong learning. Students whose businesses don’t succeed still see what it means to create value for others. They also learn valuable lessons about their abilities and interests.
Schools, students, and parents have taken interest in YE’s outcomes. What started in a single public-school classroom in Kansas is now being used by almost 500 educators in 700 classrooms throughout 30 states. Most are in public schools. Wherever Youth Entrepreneurs takes root, students who were otherwise struggling find the kind of individualized education that puts them on a better trajectory.
But students aren’t the only ones who benefit. So does basically everyone involved in the educational process. Frustrated teachers who were constrained by a one-size-fits-all curriculum can now apply their own innovative ideas to their classes, making them more effective educators and leaving them more fulfilled. Families are no longer left worrying that their kids aren’t learning and aren’t safe. Society benefits when students find where they can contribute.
This is how to transform education: by starting, finding, and growing the efforts that demonstrate the profound benefits of individualized education.
There are many other examples that prove this point, such as Narrative 4, based in New York City. Narrative 4’s cofounder Colum McCann saw that students were being lectured at instead of given the freedom to exchange ideas and experiences with others. This left them frustrated, bored, lonely, and stressed, none of which is conducive to learning.
Narrative 4 overcomes this problem by going into classrooms with customized “story exchanges.” A facilitator pairs students and asks them to share their stories with each other. The process teaches students active listening, self-reflection, and interpersonal skills, all while they learn to understand their peer’s different perspective and life story. Far from rehashing the same old material, they are continually exposed to something new.
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence studied the effects of Narrative 4’s story exchange and found that it causes students to feel fewer negative emotions while making them feel demonstrably more accepted, cheerful, confident, respected, and interested.18 The kids who go through this program become more receptive to learning and more engaged in the classroom. They stand a better chance of discovering their abilities and where and how to start applying them.
These are only a few of the best examples of projects that provide options for students to pursue their interests and develop themselves. They have changed thousands of lives.
Yet more must be done. The goal should be to help millions of kids get similar life-changing experiences, no matter where—or even whether—they go to school.
If you’re passionate about education, then you have a role to play in its transformation. The most important thing you can do is abandon the current us-versus-them mentality. Reformers vs. unions, teachers vs. parents, public vs. private, charter vs. district—none of it helps. In fact, the constant divisiveness hurts the students who need to discover their abilities. All of us need to work to empower all students.
Once you accept this mental shift (not an easy task), the road to institutional change has three parts: finding and supporting worthy causes, celebrating their success, and catalyzing widespread action.
FIND WHAT WORKS …
The first is finding and supporting efforts that individualize education.
For some, this may mean financial support. For others, it may mean volunteering. For still others, it may mean pushing to bring a worthwhile project to their kid’s school. Maybe you’re in a position to come together with other parents to start your own microschool (google it!). You could also try to educate your school board members about new options—failing that, elect a better school board—or work for policy changes at the local, state, or federal levels. Support can take many forms.
Individualized education doesn’t mean changing everything a school does. Big benefits can accrue from local projects, as Narrative 4 and Youth Entrepreneurs show. But it does require constant experimentation. Far from one standardized solution, individualized education could potentially include as many methods as there are people.
Some solutions won’t involve a traditional school at all. In some communities, groups of parents have pooled their resources to rent out space, hire good teachers (which may include parents), and build an educational setting that works for their kids and is based on their values. This works better for some students than the best public or private school in the area.
Whatever it may be, we all need to find more avenues for progress. My foundation recently partnered with the Walton Family Foundation to seed five hundred educational initiatives—everything from entire schools to specific programs.19 Our rationale is simple: support teachers striving to enable millions of students to flourish in new and unexpected ways. Some won’t pan out. But any one of them could help lead our country out of the current standardized system—and toward a more individualized, and beneficial, experience.
The same approach is needed in higher education. One of my longstanding goals has been to support faculty who work to expand the array of offerings at universities, thereby helping more students (and professors) discover their best individual path. Together with many other partners, we now support around one thousand professors and six hundred projects at more than three hundred universities.
One is the Political Theory Project at Brown University, led by Professor John Tomasi. In addition to boasting a diverse set of scholars, it runs the Janus Forum, which hosts debates between prominent academics on serious but controversial topics. The best part is that the students themselves run the forum—choosing the topics, picking the speakers, and so on. It’s one big exercise in people with different perspectives working to achieve a common goal, fostering collaboration and respect. Students learn a lot from the forum speakers, but I bet they learn at least as much from the shared experience of putting the forum together.
While such efforts are necessary, they are not sufficient. Transforming higher education ultimately requires more than new classes, majors, and academic opportunities. The university system itself needs innovators to disrupt the usual four-year, debt-riddled, on-campus college experience. There is a great need for changes that simultaneously lower costs, expand options, and allow students to discover themselves in the truest sense.
Fortunately, many have taken on this task. Innovations like OpenStax, a project of Rice University, show that much of what we’ve taken for granted in higher ed is ripe for disruption.
OpenStax saw that textbooks lock in specific and limited teaching methods, while costing way too much. For some students, paying for books and supplies can raise the cost of community college by as much as 40 percent.20 Its solution: free online modular textbooks that allow teachers to mix and match lessons based on what’s best for their students. OpenStax has already saved students more than $800 million, while providing a higher-quality, more individualized experience for more people, including some who traditionally lack access to higher education.21
But this was just the beginning.
Now OpenStax is experimenting with machine adaptive learning, with the goal of giving each student a tailored educational experience that changes based on their individual aptitudes. This is a great example of harnessing technology to facilitate individualization, and it’s potentially revolutionary given its ability to reduce costs and dramatically increase access to tailored learning.
Individualized education depends on a culture of openness and free expression, especially at the collegiate level. Students have the best chance of discovering and developing their gifts when they can debate different ideas and pursue unorthodox and even unpopular paths. The history of progress is the history of people pushing boundaries. Personal development follows the same course.
Groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) are helping universities foster a culture of open inquiry and free speech. FIRE has found that American collegiate speech codes and related policies silence students’ voices, whether by banning them from speaking, declaring that specific ideas are off-limits, or otherwise infringing on students’ ability to experiment, discuss, and learn.
Such policies are destructive. When an educational environment stifles rather than stimulates students’ discovery processes, it sends them into the world with minds that are closed, not open. This hurts both the student and society.
FIRE tackles this issue head-on. It works with students who have been silenced or stonewalled, telling their stories and sometimes suing on their behalf. The group has a success rate of 92 percent when defending student rights in court. FIRE has also worked with specific universities to repeal bad policies. By 2019, fewer than 25 percent of U.S. colleges maintained severely restrictive speech codes, down from nearly 75 percent in 2009. By 2020, thanks in large part to FIRE’s work, nearly five million students were freed from speech restrictions.
Working with FIRE and others, dozens of colleges have also adopted strong policies based on the University of Chicago’s “Chicago Statement.”22 It declares, unequivocally, that it “is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.” It continues: “Without a vibrant commitment to free and open inquiry, a university ceases to be a university.”23 To empower its students, an institution of higher learning must, at minimum, abide by these words.
We also need to recognize that higher education isn’t for everyone.
It is widely assumed that every kid should aim for at least a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college, yet university offerings can’t meet every student’s unique needs. Many young people have aptitudes that would be better developed in alternative settings. Trade and vocational schools, coding boot camps, and experiential learning programs are often scoffed at or overlooked, even though they provide a better learning environment for many, if not most, students. We shouldn’t put college on a pedestal; alternative types of education must be made part of the answer.
Mike Rowe, the famous host of the TV show Dirty Jobs, has become the apostle of the skilled trades. A true Social Entrepreneur, he started a foundation to help people realize what our society misses when skilled labor is neglected. His work with plumbers, electricians, fishers, and others has introduced him to some of the happiest, most fulfilled people in the country—people who are doing better in life because they didn’t follow the typical college track. Mike is working on several exciting projects to connect more people to these kinds of fulfilling careers. He’s going to enable many thousands to realize their potential and make a bigger contribution.
As these examples show, there are many amazing initiatives that deserve support, and support can come in many different forms. Finding and helping worthy programs is the first step to transformation.
CELEBRATE SUCCESS …
The second step is to celebrate success. We have to help people see that it’s possible to do better—that they don’t have to settle for what they have now.
The beauty of individualized education is that it’s leaps and bounds better than what’s available at the majority of schools. And yet many people don’t know about it. The best way to fix that is to find what works and get the word out.
When you see a program that gets results, tell your peers about it. When you see your kid or your neighbor’s kid benefiting from a novel educational model, talk to other parents. Call attention to the best efforts however you can, wherever you can.
Celebration also shifts the conversation. So does cooperation. It takes the fire out of the us-versus-them mentality, redirecting the focus toward helping every student. Instead of getting lost in divisive debates, people unite.
One innovator who has united and inspired people is the president of Arizona State University, Michael Crow. When he took the helm, ASU was widely known as a party school.24 The advice he received about how to change that was to cut freshman enrollment in half—as if the only way to improve educational quality is to restrict it to a smaller group of more elite kids. Not on his watch. Instead, he set out to change the school’s performance by giving more, rather than fewer, students a more tailored, varied, and beneficial experience.
This learner-centric approach has been a game-changer for students. Under Michael’s leadership, ASU has embraced online education, giving more students the opportunity to learn outside the classroom setting, which may better fit their needs, schedules, and wallets. ASU also engages high school students, letting them integrate with ASU education at an earlier age, when it’s right for them.
One intriguing project is ASU’s partnership with Starbucks. Starbucks pays for its employees to get a bachelor’s degree through the university’s online programs. This novel approach allows tens of thousands of people nationwide to pursue one of more than 80 degrees—whether or not they remain at Starbucks. It is another important move toward individualization, helping more people get a good education without forcing them into the standardized model.
ASU has now been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the most innovative university in America for five years straight.25 Since Michael Crow assumed the presidency in 2002, enrollment has increased from 55,000 to 110,000—a 100 percent increase—all while ensuring its student body more closely represents Arizona’s demographics.26 Other schools—and their students, professors, and parents—are taking note. They want to be more like ASU. And ASU is meeting more students where they are by opening branch campuses in cities outside Arizona.
This kind of public demand makes the third and final step possible: action that transforms the institution of education from the bottom up.
… TRANSFORM EDUCATION
As more people see what works and band together to support it, they become agents of change. They start calling for better educational opportunities in their local schools, their alma maters, and so on. They start demanding the kind of choices that can really make a difference: choices that recognize and reflect the uniqueness of every student and enable them to find their best path to success.
Once again, this will look different in different places.
For instance, parents and activists could band together to allow their school districts to give public school administrators more autonomy. Principals usually have authority over only 5 percent of their budgets, which prevents them from trying new things and tailoring their schools’ offerings to students’ varied aptitudes and interests.27
Research shows that empowered principals are much more thoughtful about allocating their resources. When given the flexibility, some choose to reduce the number of non-classroom employees and hire more teachers to work directly with students.28 Other studies find a positive relationship between principal autonomy and student achievement.29 The Progressive Policy Institute found that “students can achieve more if those who understand their needs best—principals and teachers, not the central office—make the decisions that affect their learning.”
My foundation works with a high school principal in one of the poorest urban congressional districts in the country. She points out the difference between the decisions she gets to make and those that are still controlled by the central office. For example, the hallway clocks cannot be set by anyone but the central bureaucrats, but the school curriculum is up to the principal. This resulted in a clock stuck for more than two years at 2:15—you have to see it to believe it! But the rich curriculum is helping her students, some of the poorest in the country, accomplish incredible things despite their hardships.
The principal has incorporated a program from an organization I mentioned earlier, Narrative 4, with exceptional results. She has seen more of her students succeed precisely because they have experienced this measure of individualized education.
Another change worth pursuing is letting families choose the schools that are best suited to their kids—whether public or private. Arizona has adopted a version of this policy, known as “open enrollment.” Assuming a public school or charter school has space, parents can enroll their kids there, even if they’re not in the district.30 West Virginia has implemented a similar policy.31
Other states allow families to use public funding to send their children to the schools that are best for them. Florida helps parents send their four- and five-year-olds to private, public, and highly specialized prekindergarten schools, paying up to $2,300 to the school of their choice.32 This saves money—Florida spends about half the national average on preschool funding—and gives parents access to 6,200 pre-k options.33 It’s also hugely popular, with nearly 80 percent of families enrolling their children in the program. (If it works for four- and five-year-olds, why not do the same for six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, and, well, every student?)
The Sunshine State also offers an Empowerment Scholarship that gives some families more than $7,000 a year to spend on private school tuition.34 In Arizona, some students can get an Education Savings Account of more than $12,500—about 90 percent of state funding per student—to spend on essentially any educational expense.35 Parents love these programs, and the kids tend to get the education that’s best for them.
As for higher education, a little experimentation will go a long way toward helping students find what’s right for them. Student loans could also use more than a little disruption, as they are bankrupting students and making it easier for schools to hike tuition.
Purdue University recently introduced income-sharing agreements, which pay a student’s way in exchange for a slice of their income in the decade after graduation (assuming they make above a minimum and pre-specified amount).36 There’s no crushing compound interest, and the payments rise only as students earn more, eventually reaching a cap. This gives the school an incentive to prepare students for the workforce, whereas student loans incentivize raising tuition without increasing the quality of the education. These arrangements may not work for everyone, so other financing options should also be explored.
One avenue that would affect both quality and cost is alternative credentialing. Instead of pursuing the traditional expensive four-year degree, students would pursue certificates focused on specific skills or a broader curriculum that covers less ground than a bachelor’s degree. Some programs like this already exist, and the coursework is more focused on developing employable skills. Scheduling is also more flexible, enabling students to proceed at their own pace.
Some schools are already offering credentials designed in collaboration with specific industries (especially in Silicon Valley) to ensure that the education meets a specific economic need.37 This gives students a quick “off-ramp” to employment when they are ready instead of making them spend a predetermined amount of time in a classroom.
Similarly, programs and technology that allow students to “stack” their credentials create “on-ramps” back into higher education.38 As technology transforms the economy, people could quickly get up to speed, helping them become lifelong learners in the process. With more alternative credentialing, higher education could serve more people at a lower cost and a faster pace. What are we waiting for?
EDUCATION THAT EMPOWERS
These are important first steps on the road to individualized education. Many more will be necessary to create a truly innovative and supportive education system, one that helps every student discover their gifts and lead a life of contribution.
For that to happen, many more Social Entrepreneurs must emerge and increase their effectiveness. The successful models they create need to be promoted and celebrated so that individuals will see a better way and demand it for themselves and their families, which will spur even more bottom-up, individualized solutions to arise.
If you are passionate about education and want to empower students, ask yourself: Am I open to new methods, or am I perpetuating the status quo? Am I encouraging students to discover their gifts, or am I pushing them to follow a path that neither motivates them nor makes them successful? Teachers, administrations, parents, philanthropists, policymakers—these questions apply to everyone who wants to bring about an education system that empowers. Your answer will determine whether you help society move toward that goal.
There’s no good reason not to transform education. New learning approaches are continually being unveiled. The tools of progress are all around us, making it easier than ever to design schools, products, and programs that treat students as distinct individuals, helping them unlock their aptitudes.
We can’t possibly know what developments will arise or predict what methods and models will work best. But that’s precisely the point. Every person is unique, and every person deserves a unique education that challenges them to be the best version of themselves—lifelong learners who are motivated to contribute and realize their potential. That’s what education is supposed to be. And that’s the kind of educational system you can help create.