It's Time to Build a Network Ready for Transformation

From the Vision

Learner-centered education is an idea whose time has come.
There is a growing hunger from education leaders, families, students, and communities for an entirely new way to educate children, for a reimagined way to foster thriving, highly engaged learners. They are seeking something transformational. Across the country, many communities and states are ready for a new vision and a fresh conversation.

We recognize the many efforts and leaders already actively seeking to transform the system into a truly learner-centered one. There is no shortage of pioneers experimenting with transformational ideas and practices. This is a realm populated by districts, states, unions, civic leaders, businesses, foundations, non-profits, universities, and individuals all starting from different access points and digging deep in different aspects of the vision. In partnership with these innovators, we seek to build a national, cross-sector network of people and organizations that are consciously and collaboratively experimenting within the new paradigm. This network will:

• Support, recognize, deepen, and learn from current experiments already innovating with one or more of the elements to create learner-centered environments for children
• Catalyze new experiments to explore how the design elements and system components of this vision can work across the full diversity of our country’s communities
• Clear structural obstacles, such as seat-time requirements, to allow for local experimentation with the support of district and state actors
• Change the public narrative from one of fixing the current system to one about how to make extraordinary learner-centered learning available to each and every child

This emerging vision offers a North Star toward which to aspire, a language that creates the space of learner-centered learning, and the means to distinguish transformational efforts from those of reform. We invite those excited and interested to join us to engage deeply on the questions still to be answered and explore how this vision might manifest across the nation.

We are committed to accelerating a cultural tipping point where new norms of learner-centered learning will shift the nation to the realization that the current system cannot fulfill on the purpose of education for all kids and that we must, therefore, work together to create a reimagined model for learning. With communities across the nation working to transform the old school-centric system to a new learner-centered one, we see the potential for a society of thriving learners, engaged parents, and inspired educators.