From Pledge to Practice: The Journey Toward a Learner-Centered Future

 

With the launch of our Learner-Centered Ecosystem Lab, we have assembled a diverse, dynamic cohort of twelve communities who each hold locally-driven visions of how learning can integrate into and unlock possibility within their neighborhoods, towns, and cities like never before.

Demi Edwards

CEO and Co-Founder of Education Reimagined

In January 2019, one hundred education leaders gathered in Washington, DC to celebrate Education Reimagined’s launch as its own 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, spinning off from its start at Convergence Center for Policy Resolution. The room was hushed, as a series of youth and adult voices read aloud a declaration—a call that learner-centered education would be available to every child in the country.

It began:

Whereas, we now recognize that every young person is unique and passionate about learning, and ready to co-create their own education…

And concluded, with a crescendo, as many voices joined together for the last line:

We declare a future in which every child has access to a learner-centered education where they are valued as unique individuals, their agency and passions are cultivated, and their learning is nurtured in caring communities. And, a future in which every educator, family, and community is supported and empowered to make the difference they are committed to making for young people.

We, the undersigned, pledge to make this learner-centered future available to all children, inclusive of race, background, and circumstance, by the year _________.

Left blank to this moment, we invited the room to set the year. By when would we—this collective of learner-centered practitioners, youth, allies, and champions—declare that this transformational approach would be equitably available across the nation?

It was a question we wouldn’t answer that day.

Attendees stood around the edge of the huge room, with one spot representing “2020 (one year)” and the further side “100 years.” Someone stood at almost every year, with their own rationale. Those ready to declare the most imminent answer did so with boldness, urgency, and in some cases, a youthful optimism for what a collective, dedicated body could make happen. Those who stood at 100 years did so with seasoned understandings of the myriad challenges that would have to be tackled to reach each and every child, but a deep commitment that the endeavor would be worth it.

So, the question of “by when” remained undecided. Instead, we chose to declare and commit not to a timeline but to a steadfastness that this future would arrive, one way or another:

We, the undersigned, pledge to do what it takes to make this learner-centered future available to all children, inclusive of race, background, and circumstance.

That signed declaration still sits in Education Reimagined’s offices—a reminder of who we are and what we are holding ourselves to accomplish.

Now, as we reach the last quarter of 2024, much has changed since that January day in 2019.

A global pandemic brought families and communities under the hood of education. Even as the current system’s status quo sustains itself (doubling down in some cases), growing numbers of educators, parents, and youth are seeking different approaches. They want opportunities for meaningful, enriching, and community-connected learning that cultivate young people’s agency and sense of self. 

Perpetuated and ingrained inequities persist within our current systems, education included. Yet, new light has been shed on these destructive realities for a broader swath of the American public, fueling long-standing and newly emerging efforts to combat them.

Employers are reporting challenges to recruiting prepared and confident talent, even as the rise in AI and the globalization of our economy changes what it means to be “prepared” for the workforce on an almost daily basis. Likewise, just as we’re seeing heartbreaking spikes in rates of loneliness and mental health struggles amongst teens and adults alike, we are being reminded of the vital roles of relationship, community, and civic life for human and societal thriving.

Out of this shifting landscape, the state of the learner-centered education field is changing in turn.

Recognition of the pernicious inequities of the current system’s design is creating space for broader conversations about outcomes, access, and opportunity in education—confronting what it means to ensure those equity commitments by design, if we uphold our national conviction that education is a public good. Moreover, what the world is calling for aligns more clearly than ever with the promise and vision of learner-centered education.

 

We are building coalitions across sectors and spaces, rallying those with the influence and networks in policy, philanthropy, and business to open new doors of opportunity for the field.

Demi Edwards

CEO and Co-Founder of Education Reimagined

In many ways, there is more space for reimagining and reconfiguring the how, what, where, and when of learning than there was even five years ago. And, at least in some circles, this field of heroic, scrappy inventors—whose work has remained on the margins for far too long—is being looked to as a source for insight and inspiration. This brings with it new levels of scrutiny, important questions about learner-centered education’s systemic spreadability, equity of implementation, sustainability, and impact. These aren’t necessarily new questions for the field, but we’re hearing more people ask them, with authentic curiosity and intensity. It is a sign that what is being made possible for young people in pockets, is being desired at scale. 

At Education Reimagined, we are ready and eager to respond; not because we know the answers already but because we have been building and cultivating the network of leaders who can tackle these questions.

We are doubling down on our long-standing efforts to connect, codify, and uplift the field of learner-centered education, with new layers added to investigate the effectiveness and efficacy of the approach. We are capturing and telling more stories to showcase the nuance of implementation and illuminate the impact of this approach. We are building coalitions across sectors and spaces, rallying those with the influence and networks in policy, philanthropy, and business to open new doors of opportunity for the field.

And, as we announced last week, we are instigating and studying the systems transformation necessary to make learner-centered education a public education reality. With the launch of our Learner-Centered Ecosystem Lab, we have assembled a diverse, dynamic cohort of twelve communities who each hold locally-driven visions of how learning can integrate into and unlock possibility within their neighborhoods, towns, and cities like never before.

These communities are already home to vibrant expressions of learner-centered experiences, manifested in district schools, charters, microschools, and/or out-of-school networks. The opportunity of the Learner-Centered Ecosystem Lab is to discover, study, and demonstrate how these experiences can be systemically realized and sustained across the community—to showcase, in real-time, what a transformed, learner-centered public education system can look like and deliver.

Over the course of a year, we will embark together in strategic R&D. As each community works to bring to life their own community-embedded, learner-centered ecosystem, we will:

• Research the process of systems transformation, the barriers to progress, and the evidence of impact in learner outcomes and community wellbeing;
• Prototype solutions to the communities most pressing infrastructure challenges, identifying spreadable structures and processes that could be integrated and configured to demonstrate a coherent system in place; and
• Document and illuminate the stories—of both success and struggle—of these communities to inform and fuel the broader field.

There is no preset roadmap to fundamentally transforming a major American institution. And, that is part of the fun. We are entering into this work with intent and conviction, as well as genuine openness to discovery along the way. We are enthusiastic about the journey—and even more so, about the passionate educators, inspiring inventors, fearless youth, and trailblazing community leaders we are joining arms with.

While much has changed since January 2019 when we signed a pledge to do “what it takes” to make learner-centered education available to every child, that commitment has not wavered. We will continue to bring every ounce of our long-held determination and clarity of vision to bear. We will bring renewed energy to our work of noticing, learning, making meaning of, and illuminating insights from what we are seeing and hearing across communities and sectors. We hope you will join us.

Demi Edwards

CEO and Co-Founder

Demi Edwards is the CEO and Co-Founder of Education Reimagined. She leads with a conviction that education transformation can create a breakthrough in equity, justice, and well-being for our children and society. With over a decade at Education Reimagined, Demi most recently served as Chief Strategy Officer and oversaw the organization’s operational launch as a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2019. She graduated from Georgetown University and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and dog.