The shape of new value networks
As we’ve studied programs like Village High School and Map Academy at the Clayton Christensen Institute, we’ve identified key value network features that give rise to unconventional models of schooling.
First, new models of schooling need to start with a clean slate. Realistically, established schools don’t change their value networks because a school’s value network is the lifeblood of that school: the families who volunteer and vote, the teachers who keep classrooms humming, and the state agencies that set the rules and provide the funding. No rational leader of a conventional school is going to dismiss the existing value network and try to build a new one. Doing so will either cripple the school or get the leader fired. It’s only in very rare instances—often in small school systems facing poignant failure—that a whole value network shifts on its own. Hence, you need to create a new school that can assemble a new value network from the ground up.
Second, new models need to start off serving what I refer to as “frontier” students and families. In some cases, these are students who have dropped out of conventional schooling because their lives don’t conform to its norms, rules, and expectations. They may need flexibility in scheduling or pacing—such as students with major medical challenges, students who struggle with school social dynamics, or students pursuing intensive interests outside of school. Some are in families that have a very different notion of what schooling should be—often valuing small learning communities, self-directed projects, family-centered education, entrepreneurship, or travel over conventional coursework. In all cases, these students are looking for something different, not something better. They willingly give up sports programs, honors and AP tracks, traditional electives and extracurriculars, and the campus social scene to get an education they want or need.
Third, new school models need autonomy from the policies, administrative hierarchies, and metrics that state agencies and districts set up for conventional schools. This is why many innovative new school models today—such as Acton Academies, Wildflower Schools, KaiPod Learning, and Colossal Academy—operate in the private microschooling space, where most policies created for conventional schools don’t apply.
Within public education, charter schooling can be an avenue to gain autonomy from district policies and administrative structures. Realistically, though, any charter school that must prove to its state and its authorizer that it offers a high-quality version of conventional schooling is still locked into a conventional value network. But some charter schools can find exemptions from the state policies created for conventional schools by being classified as alternative schools or virtual schools.
Similarly, school districts can often secure degrees of autonomy from conventional value networks by creating virtual schools, hybrid homeschools, alternative schools, or career and technical education (CTE) programs. States often give these categories of schools different rules to follow, waiving conventional seat time and attendance requirements and allowing alternative metrics of success. Nonetheless, these schools and programs must also have district-level autonomy over decisions about budgeting, curriculum, scheduling, staffing, and success metrics.
Stakeholder roles in building new value networks
Our research on innovative schools also brings to light the roles that various education stakeholders can play in creating the value networks where new models of schooling will emerge and expand.
At districts, efforts to transform education should center on launching skunkworks programs. These will not be shiny new magnet schools. Rather, they will be virtual schools, alternative schools, hybrid homeschooling programs, or CTE programs. Their aim will be to develop new approaches for serving frontier students. Unfortunately, effective district leaders who are highly attuned to the priorities of their district’s overall value networks tend to focus their time and energy on conventional schools and treat their virtual, alternative, and CTE programs as mere stop-gaps. For districts to become vehicles for reinventing schooling, more leaders will need to adopt a dual transformation approach—maintaining and improving their conventional schools while simultaneously putting resources and energy into launching and evolving unconventional models of schooling. Additionally, they will need to allow these models to scale as they attract more students and educators—potentially taking over wings of their conventional campuses—rather than capping their growth or trying to fold them into conventional schools.
State leaders can create favorable funding and policy contexts to support new value networks. As mentioned earlier, new models of schooling spring up in many states under the policies created for virtual schooling, alternative education, independent study, and career and technical education. Yet far too often, these policies still keep unconventional schools tied to conventional practices—for example, by mandating on-site instructional minutes or requiring credit hours as the currency for gauging learning. Instead of dictating the resources schools must use and the processes they must follow, states should work with these new models of schooling to set quality standards aligned with the outcomes they aim to deliver for frontier students. The freedoms afforded by education savings accounts (ESAs) present an another way to encourage new value networks. To be clear, not all students using ESA dollars will be “frontier” learners, and not all schools accepting ESA funding will break the conventional mold. But ESAs do create conditions where new models of schooling such as private microschools can emerge.
Private philanthropies could become a major catalyst for the value networks that support new models of schooling. First, they could make more grants to schools and programs created specifically for serving frontier students. Second, they can rethink their metrics for success to give more weight to the alternative value propositions that unconventional schools offer. Third, they could spur the growth of new models of schooling by incentivizing them to evolve into attractive options for mainstream students.
If entrepreneurs want to help transform education, they need to be judicious about where they get their investment dollars and their sources of revenue. Many entrepreneurs sell their investors on a story of how their cutting-edge products or services will disrupt conventional schooling. Yet when those investors then expect a clear and rapid path to growth, they steer the startups they fund toward the known and measurable market—selling turnkey products and services to conventional schools. Inevitably, choosing to play in the conventional value network shapes the company more than the company reshapes schooling. Only companies with funders that can patiently and enthusiastically serve the small and nascent value networks of nonconventional schools have the potential to help transform education.
For educators and parents frustrated with conventional schooling, it might be time to push your district to launch the kind of program described above. If that path proves untenable, you might be able to find what you’re looking for in a virtual charter school or regional alternative school. If neither of these paths offer worthwhile options, it might be time to join the private microschooling movement and appeal to your state to create an education savings account program to fund the private options you’re looking for.
Inventing the future of K–12 schooling
Reform and innovation within existing schools is important. But in the end, that work can only lead to marginal improvements in those schools, not the dramatic transformation of schooling needed for our rapidly changing world. If we really want to reimagine or reinvent education, we need a parallel approach. We need to build new schools and programs with their own distinct value networks. With the right support, these unconventional options will evolve over time to become attractive alternatives to conventional schooling for a growing number of students, families, and educators.
The schools of the future that American society has long sought are here today. They just live in niches and pockets at the edges of the K–12 landscape. For these schooling options to grow, evolve, and become compelling mainstream alternatives to conventional schooling, we need more administrators, policymakers, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, educators, and parents to escape the gravitational pull of conventional education and its value network. It’s time to establish the value networks that can foster new models of education.
