Mike Goldstein, a shrewd observer of education innovation, reflects on the recent retreat of John Arnold—a billionaire investor and philanthropist—from an agenda that promoted the expansion of high-quality charter schools.
One challenge for Arnold, and likely countless other erstwhile funders who are less candid about their abandonment of education causes, is that innovations that showed promise for a short time in one or two places often struggled to sustain themselves or scale.
It’s become conventional wisdom in some circles that education is not a “tractable” problem philanthropy can help solve.
Larry Cuban and David Tyack famously described the sense of futility: “Reforms have often resembled shooting stars that spurted across the pedagogical heavens, leaving a meteoric trail in the media but burning up and disappearing in the everyday atmosphere of the schools.”
Goldstein writes:
After being part of several reform waves—sometimes in the driver’s seat but often in the caboose for efforts that generated short-term randomized-control-trial wins but experienced long-term fade out—I’ve moved back towards pursuing artisanal change with kids. Help 20 students here, 100 students there. Kids are tough puzzles!
Typically, you need twin engines to propel change: (1) relationship-building skill and authenticity, and (2) genuine human problem solving—people who can take dozens of details that separate this kid or this situation from 100 similar ones and build just the right recipe. You need to turn both keys to launch the missile, to “reset” the kid.
Maybe it’s a failing ADHD kid who, even after medication, therapy, and a school-side 504 plan, still can’t or won’t do any homework from 6:00 p.m. to midnight and is flunking out.
Maybe it’s a KIPP alum who persisted all through high school and college, yet, even after “career coaching” from a nonprofit and the university career office, he still can’t land a decent entry-level job.
Goldstein describes a viable alternative to scaling innovations: innovation at scale. Thousands of talented and dedicated people helping students a few, or few hundred, at a time.
The best system humanity has devised for enabling and coordinating innovation at scale is a market. The next generation of educational philanthropy has an opportunity to help create a functioning market for education solutions, and ensure as many families and educators as possible can participate.
It’s early days. Right now, families only direct a fraction of their education funding. But it’s a safe bet that each year, that fraction will grow.
In Brief
How well does money follow the child in education funding formulas? The answer varies by state.
A new report shows at least one in three school districts is cutting classroom expenses due to rising pension costs. More than one if five say they’re cutting educator salaries.
A new Supreme Court ruling will make it easier for families to sue school districts—and win—under the Vocational Rehabilitation Act.
A new round of internecine Democratic Party debates over school choice is heating up.
Florida’s success with tax credit scholarships helps dispel hypothetical parades of horribles about a bill that would extend similar policies to all 50 states.
Another new study links early phone use to teen depression. A Gen Z poet concurs. And The Guardian publishes a deep dive into Jonathan Haidt’s crusade against phone-based childhood.
Another new study shows one of the purported benefits of four-day school weeks—teacher recruitment—backfires.
Parent corner
Summer reading. A great chance to get closer to our kids and help build the vocabulary and background knowledge that make them stronger readers. More tips here.
