The Power of New Value Networks in Revolutionizing Education Systems
In this hour‑long podcast, host Michael Horn interviews Thomas Arnett, senior researcher at the Christensen Institute, and Kelly Young, founder of Education Reimagined, to explore why incremental reforms to K‑12 schooling rarely succeed and why a wholesale replacement of the existing education system is required. They introduce the concept of value networks – the web of regulators, funders, unions, parents, policymakers, and other stakeholders that shape a school’s priorities – and argue that these entrenched networks lock schools into a conventional grammar of schooling. To achieve learner‑centered education, they contend that new value networks must be assembled that align incentives around agency, purpose, and human thriving rather than compliance and seat‑time. The conversation walks through several examples (New Hampshire competency‑based policies, Iowa BIG, Montessori public schools, micro‑schools, and permission‑less education pilots) and demonstrates why policy tweaks alone (e.g., competency‑based grading) fail to realign the underlying network. Kelly emphasizes the need for a mindset shift among families, educators, and funders, and both guests stress the importance of dedicated R&D funding—initially philanthropic, later public—to invent the supporting systems (assessment, credentialing, financing) that enable new models to scale. They also discuss the tension between carving out innovative programs within districts versus creating entirely separate, permission‑less ecosystems, and conclude that widespread adoption will come when new value networks prove they can deliver thriving outcomes, prompting families to opt‑in voluntarily rather than being forced by top‑down mandates.
Chapters
Welcome to the Future of Education. And now here's your host, Michael Horne.
Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions and fulfill their human potential. And to help us further that, today we have two folks who been at this work for a number of years and reinventing our education systems in our schools and rethinking a lot of the fundamental assumptions really that undergird them. We have Kelly Young, who is the president and founder of Education Reimagined. Kelly, it's good to see you.
It's great to see you. Thank you for having me.
Yeah. Especially fresh off occasion. To have you here is a luxury for us. And then we have Thomas Arnett. Tom, you've been on the show before, so it's good to see you again, obviously. Tom is a senior researcher at the Christensen Institute. He and I have been colleagues for many, many years now. I think you just passed your 10th year anniversary at the Christensen Institute, so congrats. And good to see you as well, Tom.
Yeah, great to see you, Michael. Great to see you both. Two of my favorite people to chat with. So I'm excited for this conversation.
Well, hopefully you'll still feel that way by the end, but as folks who listen know, we separate this show into four segments and we're going to dive right into our morning warmup. And I'll start with you, Tom, and I'll give a little bit of background. And the reason we wanted to have this conversation, you all had collaborated on a paper a number of months ago that came out that I used in my class at Harvard. It's a great paper called K12 value the hidden forces that Help or Hinder Learner Centered Education. And the big argument, I think, if I were to summarize it, is that schools are a part of a larger system surrounding them, whether that's the school boards, the unions, the policymakers, like they exist in ecosystem and a network of different organizations that are impacting them in different ways. And that if you really want to transform, it's not enough to just transform an individual school or an individual district. You kind of have to tackle the whole system itself. And that often means creating a new value network entirely. And so then I followed this up some months later because I was frustrated, I think, coming out of GSV where I saw both of you and everyone was saying, like, how do we change the system? And I was like, we don't change the system. We replace the system with something completely new. And so I wrote this piece why system transformation is likely a pipe dream. But I'm very in favor of system replacement and we thought we'd geek out and talk a little bit about this. And so Tom, I want to start with you, which is like I did my best to summarize the paper, but I'd love you to give a little bit more of the basic argument behind why you really need a whole new value network if system change is what you're after and the logic behind that conclusion.
Yeah, well, let me dive right in, Michael. I think all of us on this, on this conversation share this common view that education could be a lot better than it is and that it's not just about tweaking curriculum or tweaking the professional development we give teachers that there's some fundamental things that should be rethought about the idea of single paced classroom based teacher driven instruction. Now folks have been calling out the conventional model of schooling for probably close to a century since Dewey. But we also can look and see that folks like Larry Cuban and David Tyak for decades have been pointing out that yeah, people tweak the system on the margins, but that fundamental, what they call the fundamental grammar of schooling or the fundamental our language in that paper would be the fundamental organizational model of schooling hasn't changed. And so this paper really draws on insights from outside of education that are super relevant here. Clayton Christensen, when he was studying organizations, was asking this question, why is it that large, successful, well resourced companies consistently fail to adopt certain types of innovations? And what he, what he ultimately landed on was the idea of value networks being a key driver of that phenomenon, of why companies often don't innovate. So in a company context, the value network is your customers, your suppliers, your distribution channels, your investors. But in education, we look at the value network as being made up of things. It's essentially the context of individuals, other organizations, institutions and regulations that interface with and establish, help an organization establish its model. So for a school, the value network often includes local, state and federal education agencies, policymakers, learners and their families, employee unions, voters and taxpayers, the post secondary education system, community organizations, vendors, teacher preparation pipelines, philanthropic donors. That context, that value network for schools then becomes the dominant influence on its priorities. And it shapes what can you like, what types of innovations will you do. But it also determines what types of innovations just don't pass muster, don't get traction because they don't align with that broader context demands. So we wrote this paper to really point out if we want to get to new models of schooling that, you know, break free from the conventional grammar of schooling. We can't just do it by trying to take existing schools and tweak them, adjust them, because not only do their, do their models have a lot of inertia that's hard to overcome. But the value networks, they sit within the expectations that policymakers and parents and others have of what those schools are supposed to offer and how they're supposed to work. Those forces just push schools back into a more conventional model. So again, the high level takeaway is if we want new models, we have to find ways to assemble new value networks around those models to support those models.
Super helpful description. And Kelly, I think for all of us it rings true. But like your background is one where you came into this question of reimagining education through this organization called Convergence, which in essence, if I tried to summarize it would be you take sticky areas where there's two sides, broadly speaking, or multiple sides perhaps, that don't necessarily agree, and you take them through a process to come up with convergence, like a new set of views, if you will, that all sides can, can take to. So I hear that and I'm like, okay, these folks think that they can somehow get system transformation by getting all these different stakeholders in the value network to speak the same language. And indeed, you came out with this incredible statement that undergirds education reimagined about what education could look like. And then here you are writing a paper with Tom and espousing a lot of these same ideas that like, it's not going to happen in the existing value network. So I want to know, like, how did you. That feels like an evolution. Maybe it's not, you'll tell me. But like, how did you come to that conclusion?
Yeah, it is somewhat of an evolution. It was an evolution watching transformational efforts over the last 10 years when we came out with the vision. So rather than ask people, people to come to common ground, we actually asked them to set aside the legacy system and imagine what you would invent today, what we know about kids, development, society, learning, education, et cetera, and ask them to really imagine the future. And there was no question that there was agreement on what that future was. And it was what we call learner centered education. And it really is around about human thriving as opposed to consumption of knowledge. Right. And rather than compliance, it's about agency. So even at the time that if you read the vision document, it goes through everything that would have to be redesigned from the preparation of adults, the adult roles, assessment, credentialing, of learning, funding models, you name it, it would have to be redesigned because in our current system it is all designed for standardization, compliance and knowledge transfer. So we knew all of that to begin with and I don't, in some ways it's not a radical shift that what we're proposing. What we've always known is that you have to find the people who want to do this invention of a new system and that it is invention at this point. It's not about taking something and scaling something. There are, there are models that exist. Montessori, for example, right. Is a learner centered model of education. But until you have systems transformation where that would actually enable that model to thrive and exist and be incentivized, you are not going to see those models significantly spread inside of public education. And our mission, just to be clear, is about creating a public education system that a learner centered public education system. So we have watched people trying to do it inside the system and outside of the system. We have been, we are really about finding people who see this vision and are making instances of it for children, whether it's in charter district, out of school time, homeschooling, etc. And we kept seeing this tension that to people were trying to do it in system because that's where the money and the kids are. But they were highly constrained in what they were able to do because of the values networks. Then we were watching people going outside and seeing that they could actually assemble values networks that were aligned to what they were doing, but they had no funding and they had no enabling infrastructure to do it. So if you think of micro schools and pods and other interesting things that are happening outside of the system. So we just got really clear that without creating a values network that is aligned to the work, some element of is going to pull you back. Whether it's the school board, parent views, funders, state regulatory bodies, teacher certification. There's just too many whack a moles to get them all. Unless you're able to to actually assemble a group of people who want to invent this future together.
No, that's super helpful. Super helpful. And that evolution makes sense I think in light of that list that you just provided. Like that's a daunting list to move any one of those, let alone all of those move into the work cycle where I want to give you all a bunch of the yeah buts that I get when I've come out with my piece or that I hear often and have you react in essence and see sort of how you frame it. Kelly, I'll start with you because I think one question we often get, that at least I get, is like, yeah, that may be right, but do we really need to change the system? Like if we just keep improving on the margins, like, that'll be fine. So is system transformation really the thing that's needed? I'd love to have you react to that one.
Yeah, I mean, I wish it wasn't because systems transformation is really difficult. But the reality is, I mean, I was just looking at the stats and I apologize, I can't cite the report, but the instances of mental health, for example, and how dire that situation is for the youth of this country now. And that comes from not having a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of, of what they're learning, makes a difference, that they make a difference. And adding a handful of things, moments of silence, social emotional learning, you know, adding a project here or there is not going to fundamentally shift, shift that sense for them. And so it is unfortunate that systems transformation is necessary, but we have been trying for decades now to take this system and get it to marginally move on. Even the things that the system recognizes are critical, like NAEP scores or right or state testing, and it can't move it, let alone on social emotional learning, sense of purpose, employability, access and sustainability through higher ed. So if we really care about kids getting the results, systems transformation is really the only way we've got forward.
Yeah, it's interesting hearing you just say that and I'll just riff off of it before I go into the next question, which is, you know, if you think about all those, you know, you said moments of silence or meditation or social emotional learning or whatever these add ons, not that any one of them is bad, but fundamentally the system is still, you know, if we're, if at the end of the lesson, you still move on to the next one, regardless of whether you've mastered it. And agency and purpose is at the heart of your challenge. Well, you've just told people, like, actually you don't have agency over whether you can keep working to control something. And so the system keeps unambiguously sending these signals that undercuts a lot of these well meaning activities, I think fundamentally. And you just laid out, I think, a nice list of, yeah, those are wonderful things, but they're still not changing the fundamental gears of the system. So, so I want to go to the next one which is like, but surely like there are anomalies to this idea or that we can do something differently and the one that I often hear. And Tom, I'll start with you on this, but Kelly, I'd love you to weigh in as well, which is, you know, if we put in competency based learning policies, like we wiped out Carnegie units and seat time and maybe we changed the incentives. Kelly talked about incentives and like, so that a Montessori like model as an example could really thrive. And so we moved to maybe more growth based measures of learning as opposed to point in time and deficit labeling and things of that nature, then surely, like if we change what we pay for these schools and systems could start to respond. What's your take on. What's your take on that one?
So my initial reaction, I have so much sympathy for district administrators because their value networks are really messy. You know, they've got a whole populations and communities of parents that want somewhat similar, somewhat different things. They've got state policymakers that are pushing them on different angles, federal policymakers that are pushing them on different angles. They're teachers unions, they're community stakeholders. And the nature of their institution is they're expected to serve all of these groups and give them all what they want and all what they need. And it means that they're in this tug of war where I have to look at the status quo. And I think, well, this is the natural equilibrium that you get when you have all these different forces from their value network pushing and pulling on them. And they just, you know, they're doing the best they can to appease all these forces. So then to get to your question around like, well, why can't we just change the policy, change the incentives? I think what's often problematic is that we end up passing a policy that just layers one more force into that messy set of forces that are pushing and pulling on them within their value network. So you may get like a little nudge there or a little nudge here, but it doesn't have the ability to fundamentally realign the value network. I think of New Hampshire, my understanding is they've had competency based policy for a while and there are some really cool programs in the state of New Hampshire like Velax, that we profiled in our paper. But by and large, you know, the policy, the competency based policy hasn't fundamentally led to the redesign of widespread redesign of the districts across the state. And I think that's, you know, it's no one's fault. It's not that anyone's, you know, trying to become a nuisance or a hindrance to change. It's Just the nature of the value networks that a conventional system sits within. It's really hard to tweak a policy or tweak an incentive and actually get a completely real, a complete realignment of the organizational model and, and the priorities that that model is set up to pursue.
Kelly, what's your take? I mean maybe we just need more patience with that change.
So the other part about for at least learner centered education is that it is a paradigm shift. It is actually it's designing a system for a different purpose than our existing system is set up for. So the kind of value when we talk about values networks, we're not talking about slight modifications like the experience of a child learning math, for example. Like that would be a reform that you could institute. And when we first. So there are five elements that the vision document laid out for what learner centered is and competency based is one of them. Because you need to be able to credential learning no matter where it happens, wherever it happens, at whatever pace it happens, whoever it happens with. And we actually thought at the beginning if we have a star in the vision document and we had competency based at the top because we thought if you change that one, you change everything because that's a structure that we thought is keeping the whole thing in place. It turns out a there are many structures keeping it in place, but mostly there's a mindset keeping it in place. And so a structural change is not sufficient to cause a mindset shift. You need the mindset shift first and then to employ the structural change to support that mindset shift so you can find places where they are using competency based legislation to totally redo at single sites learning like Iowa Big for example in Cedar Rapids or you know, many places that we all know. But the mindset shift is for us is a shift between that we are preparing kids for the future to they are living now and they have contributions to make now. And that the idea is that it's we're not trying to help them fit in to, you know, a pre existing slot. We are helping them be lifelong learners so that they can create their lives and live fulfilling lives. And those two trajectories are radically different. And so it does take competency based ways of learning to fulfill on the new paradigm. And competency based in the existing paradigm for the, for our existing system is actually just a lot of busy work to allow for self paced learning. And so it does add value to have self paced learning, but it's a lot of work to do it and insufficient to actually change the experience of kids more than marginally. There's a whole host of other things that you would need in addition to competency based. So that's part of what's been a radical shift in our thinking. We actually realized that the mindset shift, and that is really around agency and your relationship and relationships have to be at the core of things first before any structural change will suffice.
Super intriguing point. I want to come back to that in, in a few moments. And maybe we'll end. Maybe once we end up, we'll end with that thought because I think that's a very powerful idea. I want to go to another. Yeah, but that I get first, though, which is, you know, the sort of. But look at this great thing I have. And you, Kelly, you mentioned Iowa. Big, right? I got one in higher ed recently. I made an argument that sort of these policies that states try to pass and different foundations try to fund of getting colleges to accept transfer credits from other colleges, it's not really going to work because fundamentally, like, we're still not credentialing learning. At the end of the day, we're credentialing seat time and asking these recognitions. And there's business model issues and there's questions of like, faculty saying, like, well, what you learned over that college over there is not equivalent to what I teach here. It's not good enough for my major or whatever. Like, they have all their ways, right. And a few folks, several folks reached out and were like, you're wrong. Look at this great demonstration project we have here or look what we did in Florida or look at this. And I'm like, yeah, again, you're pushing on the margins. I don't. That's great. But I don't think you're, like, you're not going to fundamentally change the system. Was my thought. But I want your thought because, like, pointing at the great thing. I'll give you another example. There is, you know, there are 500 public Montessori schools that are public schools, right. So there does seem to be room for them. Why can't those great things just sort of grow and thrive and prosper and change people's mindsets over time. Kelly, why don't you take this first and then Tom, you get it next.
Yeah, I mean, I was definitely in the camp that thought you, if you find the models, they can spread and if you put. And if you network the models together to work on systems transformation, systems transformation will happen. Turns out it was not true. And for a variety of for a variety of reasons, but mostly because without that, systems transformation is a critical component. Because these things are roses and concrete. Now you do. It's. It's not as though they are growing in fertile ground to continue to multiply. Their seeds fly off, but they land in infertile context. So the question is, how do you get to systems transformation? And I guess our thought was people will rise up, they will shift the. The context that they're operating in and begin to shift systems. But the reality is they are not. That is not what they are tasked with. Even if you are a single model, that is not your job to figure out how do we do assessment, credentialing of learning in alternative ways at scale, those. That takes a completely different skill set, a different set of people to be involved with it. And until you have those things that make this an easy shift, that make this a scalable shift, things are going to stay in small pockets. And it led us to have a radically different strategy going forward from simply identifying pioneers and networking them together to actually we are now about how do we pilot and demonstrate alternative public education systems in a handful of places. Because we believe that until you can identify invent systems that actually would enable this, that's what will spread, not you. The models can't spread until you have the enabling systems. And to date, we really have been uninterested as a country. And what would it take to invent those new systems that are scalable?
Well, I'm going to add nuance in that. I'm going to recognize, I think the marginal improvements are worthwhile. I think as folks are trying to create a new system, shift to a new paradigm, the work that other folks are doing of trying to improve the system we have is not without merit. The second thing I want to call out is that I'd be really curious to go look at those. Yeah. But for instances and see how many of those actually have accomplished what they accomplished. Because they have a different type of value network supporting them. Because that's what I've seen in a lot of the examples. You know, one thing to point out is that new value network does not necessarily have to mean outside of public education or outside of school districts. There's places within school districts, we profile some of them in the paper, where they are coming up with very different approaches to education. But they found a way to kind of assemble a different type of value network within that publication public education landscape, which often means they find kind of exceptions or loopholes in policy or just places in policy where they can do things differently. It means that they're often serving different types of learners and different, you know, families with different expectations about what school should be. And so their forces align, their value network forces aligned around doing something different. All that being said though, I will say that often those programs get stuck. And one way in which I see them get stuck is that you create a new program that's kind of cool, niche on the margins, but it never improves. You know, it's like we created this really cool program for alternative education for dropouts and we are now checking the box that we've got dropouts back engaged with the system, but it's not becoming a really robust learner centered program. It's just kind of this niche program on the margins that no one's expecting to become more than just this stop gap. So that's one problem is I think you need leaders with vision to say, no, let's use this as a ground to invent new models of schooling, not just let's plug a hole and then walk away and go back to our day jobs. The other problem I see though, and sometimes these programs do improve and they become really compelling and then they get throttled. So a couple programs I've seen within districts where they've created really compelling learner centered versions of education and they're getting really great test scores and they'll often say, yeah, the district loves to feature us when people come to visit, they take them on a tour and they show them our site. But we can't grow anymore because our building only holds 200 or 400 kids. And the district has said, nah, we don't want you to grow, you're a cool program, but we don't want you to affect the enrollments in our conventional schools. So we have to limit you and kind of keep you caged in that space. So that's where I hope that some of the impact of the work we're doing is to help superintendents, state policymakers, help them have the vision of, look, not only how can we create the context where new programs and new value networks can emerge, but how do we also protect them and give them the Runway they need to to improve and grow and not just be relegated to these really neat boutique niches of the system, but never allowed to become mainstream alternatives to conventional education.
So I want to jump in, and I'm going to jump ahead now of where I was going to go into and we're going to go into our special section because this is where I want to push you both A little bit. And see, like, is carving out an area within a district really separate enough? Like, how separate does it have to be? And the reason I'm asking it is because isn't that still in a value network of the district board or, you know, the colleges or whatever else? And what I think I often see, and Kelly, I think you alluded to this a little bit also, which is like, yeah, maybe you see that great example. It's not their job to re architect the system and frankly, over time they sort of fade out or there's a regression to the mean, if you will, because the system still has its underlying incentives. And you can pick, you know, the five that pull it back, but like five of 50 that could have pulled it back. Right. So I'm just sort of curious, like, in your viewpoints, how separate does it really have to be? And are some of these examples that you've cited within districts, are they those really the right mental models for us to pin to what. Tom, why don't you go first on your view and then Kelly?
Yeah, well, as backstory, Michael and I have had some back and forth on this one. I think it's a real challenge. I think of it kind of like a gravitational pull, right? Like, if you can get out of the earth's gravitational pull, there's a place where you can, you know, you can be a satellite to the Earth and you can do things a little bit differently. But some of the things we want to see, it takes really escaping that gravitational pull beyond just kind of being in orbit of it. And I think that's a challenge. As you launch a program within a district, there's a pole to bring it back, bring it back to where it's at. And that's real. I think the counterpoint to that is the stuff happening in what some folks refer to as permissionless education. I mean, permissionless is about getting totally free of any kind of conventional value network. I'd say, though, there's. There's its own set of challenges over there in terms of, you know, it's. There's not. There's not a lot of open. There's. There's a lot of open space to do stuff, but in terms of finding the funding and finding the support, like it's got its own set of challenges. I actually think it's a. It's an interplay of both, that we need innovation happening both within districts and in the spaces outside of districts, both to see different versions of what's possible and to push each other a little bit to try things that are different.
So our view is, I would love to believe that it's possible inside of districts and that you could carve out the space. And for all the reasons we talked about, those value networks that are very volatile, they're constantly in flux. It is very hard, even if you get something going, to sustain it long enough. But that's not the only issue with it. The other, you know, in every other industry we have R and D space where we know that you do not invent something new with the. The people who are tasked with producing the existing resources, whatever it might be. Right. You just wouldn't do it. You don't go to the car manufacturers and say, let's invent flight because they have to continue to make cars. They have the tools to make cars. They have the incentives. All of those things exist. And yet, for some reason, we think going to the people who are tasked with administering the existing system, they are going to have the time, the space, the funding, the resources, the talents. Because to invent a new system of education is not an easy task. You really have to be standing in a very different place. And if you're also tasked with administering the current one, you're always intention. So to me, it's not because of the lack of will, the lack of talent, the lack of vision for lots of people in districts that are trying this. It's that it isn't the right conditions to actually do this work. And it's also a misplacement of what we are doing or a miscategorization of the stage we're in. I keep talking about invention, and it's because so often in education we see a model and then we say, let's scale that model. Rather, what we have to do is create the conditions for models like that and many others like that to be able to spread and to create those conditions is a very different task than creating a model. So I'm not willing to say no that you couldn't do it that way. I mean, we are just looking at education reimagine. What are the conditions and how can you get those conditions? I'm very skeptical that you could get them in a district without significant resources going towards it and really examining how separate it is. I do think it would need separate governance because of the values networks. It would have to have people who are completely opting in from the educator perspective, as well as the families and youth. And that the existing system that sitting side by side with it is not administering the funds to the new because that's the other issue. As one begins to grow, as the new alternative grows, there's a lot of incentive for the existing system to also, to Thomas's earlier point, throttle it. Right. To pull it back. So you also need to know that the funding of it is not controlled by the people who have an incentive to kill it.
No, that makes sense. Okay, so let me go into my penultimate question then from there, which is, I love that phrase, create the conditions, Kelly, that you just used. I think that's a really good one. And Tom, you mentioned the permissionless space, and this is the Zone of Education Savings Accounts and some of these other efforts to create, I think, more room for permissionless education, but still with public financing. And I'm curious your views of that theory of action, both of you. Kelly, maybe you can go first on this one, but I just sort of. Is that what we're pinning our hope on right now, to have the space to reinvent and do systems change, or are there other ways or mechanisms that you would see us creating the conditions to have a new. A novel public education system?
Yeah, one, I believe if you can get state funding and federal funding to support the R and D, that's where we want to end up. Whether at this stage we could get it free from the constraints of the existing system seems very difficult. And it has not happened to date. And so I think it's going to have to be philanthropically led in the early stages to actually develop the R and D for this. And it will be important to have the philanthropic support, because if it's only done on parent tuitions and parent support, you're going to be building a system that is only designed for some, and you will not actually be designing something that works for all children. Um, and I think if, you know, governments are risk adverse, right? Policymakers are risk adverse. And so they are not typically the places where you get the cutting edge ideas from. It is usually from in at least an industry, right from the marketplace. And because we don't have a marketplace in education, we. We have to create the spaces. And I think that's going to have to be philanthropically supported. And once you get some things that are working and people can see that, where kids and parents and educators are loving what they're experiencing, then I think you could begin to get state and federal money to go deeper, expand, broaden the pilots and the prototypes.
That's helpful. Tom, before you give your reaction to the esa permissionless, et cetera world, just one quick thought actually, off of what Kelly said is and check me on the nuance. I think what you're saying this R and D sector, there's similarities to what Joel Rose and Transcend and some of those folks have have talked about like an R and D for model providers. But I think what I hear you saying is yes, but that's not sufficient. They also need R and D to create the new system by which those model providers thrive and live in and so forth. Am I hearing that correctly?
100% yes.
Okay, perfect. It strikes me as a really important nuance. So Tom, let me turn to you then on this ESA permissionless question. How do you frame that effort? Is that is in your view, could this be the separate enough space?
I think it can. I think there's a lot of promise again from the perspective of how do you create a different value network? It allows for removing a lot of the forces that push and pull an existing school systems and saying let's create a value network that can align around what do learners and families need without a lot of other pressures pushing and pulling in different directions. I do want to say, kind of add some caveats and say that when we talk about what is learner centered education and our vision for learner centered education, I don't think permissionless guarantees that every program coming out of permissionless education is going to be learner centered centered. It's more of the it's one way to create the conditions where folks that are innovating and building new models could create those types of models. But it doesn't guarantee that every, every model is going to be good or every model is going to be learner centered.
Super helpful. Okay, let's go to closing time. You all have inspired me with this last question around changing minds. Kelly, your comment in particular around the importance of that more than just sort of a wonkish policy response, if you will, or changing to competency based learning I think is an important insight and I'm curious how you see that playing out. And I'll put forth what I think might be a vision and have you both react to strikes me that what you're both saying is you effectively want families choosing, actively choosing these learner centered models and systems rather than saying you have to opt in because if you have to opt in, then that creates a value network that's going to try to change the underlying architecture, if you will, of the new system. Instead you want people that say like yeah, that's what I want. They opt into it. Theoretically they're successful. More people see that and they start to Opt in. And over time, if you will, in the classic disruption stories, the volume collapses from the old way of doing things into the new. Is that sort of the mental model that you have in mind when you say changing mindsets, or is there something else going on there? Kelly, why don't you take it first and then, Tom, you get the final word.
I agreed with everything that you said, and I think when I said changing. Yeah, that this is a mindset shift that you need to start with the people who have already had a mindset shift and do want what this is. And yeah, and you, you nailed it. And the idea is, if this really does lead to human thriving and youth having joyful experiences, not just when once they graduate, but throughout their childhood and education process, that that should be what people want. And it would start to draw more educators and more children. Now, that's easier said than done, but that is the mental model.
So I want to articulate a little bit of, like, what I see the transition looking like. Like, what does it look like for us to go from where we are today to having new models that are in new value networks, to those models becoming mainstream, widely accessible to lots of learners? I worry that folks might read our paper or listen to this conversation and think, oh, so you want to force folks into, you know, you have this vision of what learner centered education should be, and we need to create the policies that push people into this new vision. And I don't think that's how it happens or how. I don't think it can even happen successfully if that's, if that's the approach that people try and take. In other words, we don't get there by education reform, by just passing policies that push people into this new system. I think what happens instead, and this very much draws on the ideas of disruptive innovation, is that there's some folks, like Kelly mentioned a minute ago, that have already, they have a different, they have different priorities. They want something different from education. And it starts by building models that serve those folks and that align with what those folks are looking for. And often it's not that, you know, they don't care about academic achievement, but they just have a very different, you know, if you look at these different value networks, they have a very different ordering and how they rank what, what matters in education. You know, they're not saying, you know, first and foremost is like, are you covering the content? Are students getting high test scores? They're saying, that may matter, but most important is, are you setting up youth to thrive? Are you giving them experiences that prepare them for the real world? Are you helping them to have a sense of purpose, to have a sense of mastery? And that comes first. That's what's more valued in these new value networks. We don't get widespread change by convincing everyone that they need to change their values and adopt these new set of values of the folks in the new value network. I think what happens instead is as those value networks improve and thrive, folks that are sitting in the old value network say, you know what, it's actually getting to the point where I feel comfortable that it's reliably going to help me do what I wanted to do with my life, in other words. So let me give a case in point. Like, I see families often, they'll, and they'll verbalize and they'll say, yeah, I want, I want the, you know, this more holistic approach to education. But then as their kids approach like 8th grade, they start to go, yeah, but I also want them to go to college and I know that they need to get good test scores to go into college. So that was great for elementary school and middle school, but now that they're in high school, let's put them back in the conventional education system. So I think, I think what happens is we get to a point where the proof points from that new value network are so compelling that folks say, actually, you know what, the kids over there, they are getting into college, they're maybe not getting in by meeting the same criteria we thought were important, but they are getting into college and they're doing really well. Or maybe what happens is folks look over and say those kids aren't all going to college, but they're really thriving in their lives post secondary education. And that's really what I care about. And so it's not that people change their values, it's that they start to see how these new programs sitting in new value networks are just compelling with what they really want in life. Love it.
Kelly. Tom, thank you so much for joining me having this conversation. I feel like I learned a lot from it and have some new ideas coming out of it. So just appreciative to you both. I suspect a lot of other people will learn and those who are tuning in, frustrated, seeking to transform the system. Hopefully they walk away with some ideas of how they can actually help on that. So on behalf of everyone tuning in, thanks so much.
