To Combat Learning Loss, Schools Need to Overhaul the Industrial-Age Paradigm

The devastating picture presented by the National Assessment of Educational Progress has occasioned a lot of discussion about what it’ll take to overcome two years of pandemic disruption, which followed a decade of stagnant academic achievement. Well, Joel Rose, the CEO and co-founder of New Classrooms, argues that the most important thing we can do is overhaul the “industrial paradigm” of schooling. I’ve known Joel for close to 15 years and have long found him an interesting thinker and New Classrooms an intriguing model. When he offered to share some thoughts on what schools need to do, I decided to take him up on it. Here’s what he had to say.

Addressing what to do about that requires reckoning with the larger question: Why did movements over the last two decades to raise standards, improve educator quality, upgrade curriculum, enable choice, leverage assessment, instill accountability, and increase funding appear to have such a limited impact on college and career readiness?

One potential answer: Nearly all of these reforms left the basic tenets of the industrial-paradigm classroom intact.

That approach, where groups of same-aged students all learn the same thing at the same time with a teacher and (usually) a textbook, was advanced more than a century ago as a means to rank and sort students into different life pathways—effectively a timed, academic obstacle course with real-life implications.

First, it’s unforgiving to those who fall behind. What’s taught is based on one’s age, not what they know. Stumble for any reason, like a pandemic, and it can be hard to catch back up—especially in cumulative subjects like math.

Second, what a student experiences in school is limited by the capacity of the teacher. Like many teachers, I tried to meet each of my students’ unique needs, to design and deliver engaging lessons, to thoughtfully review their classwork and homework, to stay in close communication with parents, and more. That’s what students, families, and taxpayers deserve. But I simply didn’t have the time or resources to sustainably do that.

If meaningful improvement in our overall educational system could be achieved without tinkering with the industrial paradigm itself, we probably would have seen it by now. Yes, the reforms that animated the last two decades can all make a difference. But if national pre-pandemic proficiency gains of 2 percentage points per decade is the best one could hope for, it will take at least a century before the vast majority of students graduate college- and career-ready.

There are undoubtedly better ways of “doing school” in the 21st century than what the 19th century architects of the industrial paradigm classroom conceived. Learning today can be more personalized, more reflective of the science of learning, more sustaining for educators, more reflective of what local communities are seeking, and—most importantly—more impactful for students. But those new approaches need to be designed and scaled.

To help lay out a path forward, New Classrooms (the organization I lead) partnered with Transcend, an organization that supports schools in implementing new learning models, to release a new report called Out of the Box: How Innovative Learning Models Can Transform K-12 Education. The report centers on the role of model providers: organizations that design more modern approaches to teaching and learning and then support the adoption of those approaches in partnership with like-minded local school communities.

Model providers do not run schools. They are more akin to curriculum organizations that reimagine what students experience when they come to school. But because the models these organizations create can so deeply shape what students experience, both model providers and school operators can share in the responsibility for student outcomes.

Several organizations have been working to bring about the model provider sector. Our own work has centered on developing Teach to One 360, a proof point for what an innovative learning model can be. It uses a diagnostic assessment to generate a precise, personalized math curriculum for middle and high school students that adapts throughout the school year based on individual progress. Most uniquely, 360 then integrates a combination of teacher-led, collaborative, and independent lessons as well as a first-of-its-kind scheduling algorithm so that each day, students access the lessons and peer groups that will best support their progress. (Note: 360 will relaunch in 2023, but an all-digital version called Teach to One Roadmaps is being used in schools today.)

Our experience has helped us understand the conditions required for schools to transition to a student-centered paradigm. It also illuminated the acute barriers that make it harder for more schools to get there. These include underinvestment in educational research and development, inertia within schools and districts that limits innovation, and education policies—most notably around assessment and accountability—that incentivize keeping the industrial paradigm intact.

The industrial paradigm classroom has reached its limits. While policymakers, systems, and school leaders must do all they can to address today’s crisis in learning, they must also begin to develop a vision for a future of schooling that gets out of this box and moves to something better

Is Petting a Guinea Pig SEL? It’s Time to Call Out the Quacks

I recently got a marketing pitch for the Pets in the Classroom grant program. Now, classroom pets are swell. They’ve been with us since time immemorial, and I’m a fan of the assorted bunnies, hamsters, guinea pigs, and occasional reptile. But my eyebrows were raised at the PR hack’s timely new hook: “As the need for social and emotional support for students increases, teachers are turning to classroom pets.”

The press release touted the “increase in grant applications for the 2022-23 school year, issuing 15,500 grants in two short months.” It announced, “As studies prove and teachers confirm, classroom pets serve as a much needed resource for students who are experiencing anxiety, difficulty focusing, self-control problems, or who just need a friend.”

The teacher testimonials were striking in their over-the-top fervor. In the press release, one teacher was quoted enthusing, “Two students that I tested this year were eased by holding and petting the guinea pigs while they completed their evaluation.” She added that “a group of 5th graders come[s] in before school starts and during some of their recesses to spend time with guinea pigs. This group whether they know it or not are building social skills.”

There were also some remarkable survey results. A survey of teachers in the U.S. and Canada conducted by Pets in the Classroom found that “interacting with pets in an educational setting” led 98 percent of teachers to report a rise in “empathy and compassion,” “student responsibility,” and “student engagement.” I’d encourage readers to check out the survey results and accompanying research. I think it’s fair to say the proffered evidence wouldn’t pass muster with a savvy 8th grader.

Look, other than mockery, there’s a more substantial point to be made here. As much as I’ve been skeptical about some of the practice and pedagogy surrounding SEL, I’m sympathetic in principle and would like to see SEL avoid the sad fate of so many well-intended education acronyms. Whatever one thinks of the classroom promise of pets, I’m dubious that petting a guinea pig or feeding a bunny develops the social-emotional-learning skills that proponents emphasize—things like persistence or executive function. On that count, this kind of thing should be a big, blinking warning sign.

Several years ago, in an essay entitled, “What Social and Emotional Learning Needs to Succeed and Survive,” Checker Finn and I observed, “Given the raft of malarkey being peddled by consultants, vendors, education school faculty, and plenty of others in the name of SEL (and much else), it’s important to develop markers to help serious educators and curious parents know what clears the bar and what does not.”

Well, this is the kind of dreck we had in mind. Those with longer memories, in fact, may recall how the rush of publishers and hucksters to brand everything as “Common Core-aligned” (including some truly silly worksheets and sorry textbooks) was one of the forces that helped alienate parents and poison the well for the Common Core.

“The question,” Checker and I asked, “is what bona fide advocates are prepared to do when it comes to flagging the frauds, identifying the charlatans, [and] calling out practices that lack evidence.” Leadership entails not only explaining what advocates think SEL should be but also what it isn’t. That means, Checker and I noted, doing the uncomfortable work of “calling out those who are pitching dubious wares under the SEL banner.”

And I can tell you that the Pets in the Classroom grant program is far from the only pitch I’ve gotten like this recently. As an Ed Week blogger, a Forbes contributor, an Ed Next editor, and such, I get a lot of pitches. And I think it’s fair to say that I probably get a handful of shady “SEL-aligned” pitches every single day.

If the more serious proponents can’t keep the quacks from selling their wares under the SEL shingle, the whole enterprise is in trouble. Indeed, as Checker and I noted, “If SEL does tip toward the lax and banal, history suggests that it will likely have a relatively short shelf life, much like the self-esteem fad of the 1980s.”

When 19,000 grants are going out under the banner of SEL in order to help students visit guinea pigs during recess, it’s fair to say that the hucksters are riding high. The question is what SEL’s more responsible leaders are prepared to do about it.