Public education has been facing more and more challenges, including attempts to limit what is taught, the weakening of protections for vulnerable learners and reductions in funding. Over the next decade, its core structures could be challenged by the emergence of more and more educational options and specialized services for learners.
As education becomes more varied, existing barriers to accessing high-quality educational options could deepen, and new equity and access issues could emerge. In the meantime, states could have opportunities to lead education transformation by enacting supportive policies, and school districts could have opportunities to implement new policies, along with existing waivers and flexibilities, creatively.
Education leaders and changemakers are faced with navigating present educational realities, preparing for the mid-term and anticipating and responding to long-term possibilities. Â
Three horizons of change and action
Through our publications and engagements with constituents across the education landscape, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ helps people consider three horizons of change and action.
This approach is inspired by the , which uses the concept of time horizons to help people consider what is and is not working today, what the future might hold and what transitions and innovations might create a bridge.
°²Ô´Ç·É±ô±ð»å²µ±ð°Â´Ç°ù°ì²õ’ horizon one thought leadership shines a light on what the comprehensive implementation of personalized, competency-based learning looks like and can achieve. It helps people working in education systems and influencing educational change to make near-term change.
On horizon two, we help people engage with and plan for emerging issues in education, especially those affecting learner-centered education. This work helps strengthen today’s education management and changemaking efforts by surfacing mid-term opportunities and challenges.
Our horizon three thought leadership explores broad forces of change in and around education,  surfacing possibilities for the future of learning. It looks at least ten years out to help education leaders and innovators prepare for what’s ahead by translating insights about the future into action today.
Working Across Horizons at ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ
- Our horizon one thought leadership includes work to illustrate what is possible and inspire near-term change, as with Finding Your Path: A Navigation Tool for Scaling Personalized, Competency-Based Learning.
- Examples of how we partner in horizon two and help people tackle emerging issues can be seen in our policy partnerships with states, such as in the in Minnesota, the  or the .
- For 20 years, we’ve been engaging with horizon three thought leadership and exploring future possibilities. In Envisioning Educator Roles for Transformation, we focus on potential educator roles, while in Looking at What’s Ahead for Education, we look more broadly at future trends in education.
Finding sustainable, systemic solutions
Even in relatively stable times, education experiences changemaking fads and faces demands from families and caregivers, school board members, legislators and other constituents. It can be tempting to latch onto the latest technology or approach as a silver bullet that promises to advance goals such as equity and improved outcomes. Developments such as smartboards, small schools, one-to-one computing, STEM/STEAM education, the disaggregation of data and now AI can help educators implement effective teaching and learning. But they can also contribute to the noise, drowning out the search for sustainable, systemic solutions that go beyond simply making education systems more efficient or boosting engagement within their existing parameters.
Considering near-, mid- and long-term opportunities and challenges can help education decision makers balance the need to solve immediate problems and the urgency of improving things for children and youth right now with their highest aspirations for teaching and learning and a broad perspective on how education might serve and exist within a changing societal landscape. By looking at complicated problems and changemaking efforts through the lenses of multiple time horizons, people can generate solutions and set strategies that promise to steer education systems forward with deliberation and resilience.
Planning across time horizons
Through three lenses on education management and changemaking, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ engages people across the education landscape with topics central to advancing student-centered learning and making education systems more nimble and learner-centered in the context of a dynamic world. Innovating and strategizing with multiple time horizons in mind is becoming increasingly important as social fragmentation , confidence in public education and other institutions and many students do not find their educational experiences or .
¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ hopes to realize a future of learning where all students can pursue deep learning experiences that center their needs, interests and passions; feel like they belong; and have the power to make choices about their futures. Setting a course toward such a future while attending only to immediate options or relying solely on the next hot topic or emerging possibilities would risk staking children’s futures on fragile plans. We need to make robust plans informed by near-, mid- and long-term perspectives and keep adjusting them as we learn more and the farther horizons come into greater focus. We need to find flexible ways toward positive futures of learning, together.
