6 Ways State Policymakers Can Build More Future-Focused Education Systems: A Podcast Series with the Aurora Institute: Episode 6

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Hi, this is Aurora from the Educating All Learners Alliance,
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and you're listening to Six Ways State Policymakers Can Build More Future-Focused
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Education Systems, a cast series with the Aurora Institute.
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The Aurora Institute is a national nonprofit organization working on policy
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advocacy, field building and capacity building, research and knowledge sharing,
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and convening to advance innovative approaches that transform education for youth across America.
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In April of 2024, the Aurora Institute released state policy recommendations
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to transform education for all learners,
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especially those who have been underserved by the current system.
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Each five-minute segment in our series will cover one of the six identified policy shifts.
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Joining us today is Virgil Hammons, CEO of the Aurora Institute, and Jennifer Kabaker.
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Well, let's dive into the final recommendation, which is to redesign learning experiences.
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Virgil, you've talked a lot over this series, so help us digest this last recommendation.
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What does this mean from a systems level? Certainly. I'm going to ask you a
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question back though, Aurora, if I can. Oh, yes. You're an educator.
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You've done this work. work, how often did you have the opportunity to engage
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and collaborate with policymakers around the great work you do in classrooms?
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Absolutely never, for me at least, not with policymakers. Yeah,
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it just doesn't happen enough.
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And so we see this as a great opportunity for state policymakers to set the stage with learners,
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for learners, with educators, to engage deeply in kind of these new learning
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experiences that are tied to real world meaningful experiences.
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Like imagine if a policymaker was next to you learning from the great work that
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you are doing to essentially decouple academic progress from C-time,
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age, or grade level traditional metrics of success.
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And you work with them to think through new processes that enable learners to
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progress based on these really exciting and empowering demonstrations of learning
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through a variety of pathways.
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And that's what we're talking about. And if we can help inform legislators,
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policymakers, and help them to work with them to co-design and develop policies
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to support districts and school leaders to provide students with things like
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hands-on, high-quality, work-based learning experiences that are co-developed
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with community partners,
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families, and the workforce around us.
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So what could this look like in practice? We're able to, you know, implement this.
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What does this look like in practice in the classroom? room.
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Well, if we do all of these policy recommendations well and systemically,
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as you've been asking us, like, what does this look like at a systems level?
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Well, if we're able to put all of these elements into place,
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we can start to think differently about the learning experience, right?
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Where students now have the opportunity to experience learning that is much
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more relevant and tied to their goals and interests, right?
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Learning that is meaningful and certainly hands-on.
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And here's a really great part that as an educator, I know, all you know,
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is that when learners have agency over what they are learning and how they are
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demonstrated in learning, just the power that that brings back to the classroom.
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But we also recognize that learning doesn't just have to happen within our traditional
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four walls of our school building, right? It can take place anytime and anywhere.
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And so how do we create those opportunities and co-design that in partnership with our communities?
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It's been great talking to you both over the course of this series.
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So let's wrap this up with some final thoughts.
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What are you hoping is the big takeaway from these policy recommendations?
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And I'll let either of you jump in first. What are you hoping are the big takeaways
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from these policy recommendations?
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I can chat from the local level, and I hinted at it as I engaged you,
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Aurora, in the question back.
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But really, our hope is that state policymakers will take these recommendations
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and use them as levers to transform their educational system into one that is
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much more future-focused,
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and ultimately is driven by the collaborations that they help inspire with our
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local communities, right?
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At the state level, the local level, the regional level, creating that culture
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of agency at all levels of the system.
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So for me, the big takeaway is that we want state policymakers to realize that
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they have an important role to play in education transformation and really moving
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the needle towards more competency-based, personalized, and student-centered
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learning for their students.
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Though there can be challenges around navigating compliance with the federal
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government, and the federal government does play an important role in oversight,
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especially around the distribution of education funds.
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Funds, state policymakers are
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really positioned to support more meaningful engagement with educators,
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to encourage communities to really get engaged with their education systems,
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and to build this greater vision around what we want students to know and able
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to do once they leave K-12,
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but also what happens to them beyond how they enter post-secondary,
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how they enter the workforce,
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and how they get on a trajectory to success for the rest of their lives.
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That wraps up our series, folks. Folks, thank you so much to Virgil Hammons
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and Jennifer Kabaker from the Aurora Institute.
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Now to learn more, check out their work at aurora-institute.org.
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I'm Aurora from ELA, and this was six ways state policymakers can build more
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future-focused education systems.