(Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath)
Public education in the United States was envisioned as a great equalizer: a way for every child, regardless of circumstance, to have a fair chance at a fulfilling life. In practice, however, that vision was never fully realized or universally extended. Horace Mann's 19th-century advocacy for universal schooling, and later John Dewey’s link between education and democracy, carried ideals that were aspirational then and remain unfinished now.
In "A Democratic Vision for Public Schools," Kent McGuire and Matt Wilka argue that recent decades of reform narrowed our understanding of what schools are for, tilting toward what can be measured and managed, and away from the civic and human purposes that make public education a public good. Their invitation, one I share, is to step back from today’s tactical debates and ask a more foundational question: What is the purpose of public education, now, in a diverse democracy under strain?
While public education has become more inclusive over time, inequities in opportunity, achievement, and outcomes have persisted. The world has changed, technologically, economically, and politically, and yet schools have stayed remarkably static. Families are leaving those traditional structures at an astonishing rate in favor of public charter, private, homeschool, microschool, and even less formal options.
At the same time, young people are increasingly skeptical of the "school deal": The promise that years of hard work in school will translate into a stable, secure life. For many—especially those furthest from opportunity—rising college costs, economic precarity, and rapid technological disruption cast doubt on whether traditional pathways still lead where they once did.
In this moment of eroding trust, we cannot afford to treat education as an incremental project. The question before us is not just how we improve schools, but why we have them—what purposes they can and must serve.
If we are serious about fulfilling education’s democratic purpose, we must be willing to build and try radically different models: where young people help shape what and how they learn, connect their studies to the real world, and develop the skills to thrive in a rapidly changing society.
Revisiting the Purpose of Education
Public education has always reflected both America’s aspirations and its contradictions. It has opened doors for millions, yet it has also mirrored and reinforced the inequities of the broader society.
Too often, we’ve talked about education as something you pursue for yourself—to get ahead, to earn more, to climb higher, and to secure your own success. That framing has shaped everything from policy decisions to dinner-table conversations. But when education is treated as a private transaction rather than a shared public good, it becomes harder for people to see why everyone should support and sustain it.
McGuire and Wilka describe how a market-oriented era of reform helped shift schooling toward individual returns: choice, competition, and outcomes defined by standardized measures. Whether one agrees with every aspect of their diagnosis, I think they are right about the consequence: When purpose narrows, so does imagination. And when imagination narrows, schools become easier to dismiss, defund, or dismantle because fewer people can articulate what, beyond individual advancement, they are for.
Reclaiming the purpose of education begins with understanding that thriving individuals and thriving communities depend on one another. Education is how we prepare young people to lead meaningful lives while strengthening the communities and democracy they inherit.
These aims reinforce one another. When students learn to think critically, to collaborate across lines of difference, and to contribute to something larger than themselves, they not only shape stronger futures for themselves; they strengthen the civic fabric that binds us together. Education at its best helps young people learn how to work with others, debate and discuss ideas, and build trust-based relationships that nurture belonging and heal divides.
For that reason, the next chapter of education cannot narrowly focus on raising test scores or recovering learning loss, important as those goals are. It should focus instead on building the capacities that sustain a healthy democracy: discernment, collaboration, ethical reasoning, empathy, and the courage to shape solutions for problems we cannot yet see. It should also be guided by a collective vision for what education makes possible—one that inspires young people to see themselves not only as learners but as builders of a future that is more just and more connected than the society we have today.
From Incremental Change to New Models
For decades, reform efforts have sought to improve public education by tweaking what exists. We’ve revised standards, reshaped accountability systems, introduced new curricula, and layered in new technologies. Yet we’ve rarely stopped to question the design of the system itself.
Incremental change has improved outcomes for some, but it has not altered the broader trajectory, and our K–12 system remains far from where it needs to be. Preparing young people for the demands of today’s world will require something bolder: school models that are fundamentally different, not just marginally better.
At NewSchools Venture Fund, our role is not to scale a single model, but to invest early in leaders and designs that challenge the traditional boundaries of schooling. For example, with early funding from NewSchools, BELIEVE Academy, a charter school in St. Louis, opened in 2024 with a clear mission: integrate academic rigor with hands-on healthcare pathways from day one of high school. Students work in simulation labs alongside healthcare professionals and earn industry-recognized certifications while completing college-credit coursework. Through partnerships with BJC HealthCare and St. Louis Community College, students graduate prepared to enter high-demand medical careers or pursue higher education with significant credits already earned.
When students learn to think critically, to collaborate across lines of difference, and to contribute to something larger than themselves, they not only shape stronger futures for themselves; they strengthen the civic fabric that binds us together.
Similarly, at Discovery Polytech Early College High School, a public district school in Springfield, Massachusetts, learning is organized around interdisciplinary, project-based experiences connected to real-world problems. Students collaborate on long-term projects, present their work publicly, and build portfolios that demonstrate mastery over time. Assessment extends beyond traditional tests to include exhibitions, performance tasks, and community engagement. The result is a school model that rethinks time, evaluation, and the role of teachers to better prepare students for both college and civic life.
These schools are not incremental adjustments to the factory model. They are structural redesigns—rethinking schedules, partnerships, assessment, and the role of community—to ensure that learning is connected to contribution and long-term possibility. In doing so, young people aren’t just gaining skills; they’re expanding their sense of possibility and developing a deep sense of purpose that will carry them through their lives.
When students discover that their learning holds both personal meaning and public value, the impact compounds outward. Communities gain new ideas, leadership, and creativity. Local economies grow more resilient as young people see viable futures where they live. And civic life becomes stronger as graduates bring curiosity, empathy, and critical thinking into how they engage with others.
In these new models, school becomes a place where learning feels alive because it is lived—and success is defined by how students use their knowledge to improve their lives and the world around them.
The Human Core of Learning
As technology continues to reshape how we live, work, and learn, the most essential skills are the ones that make us human. Critical thinking, ethical reasoning, creativity, empathy, and discernment have always mattered, but in an age of artificial intelligence, they’ve become indispensable.
The next generation of learning must help young people understand not only how to use AI and emerging technologies, but how to think about them: conceptually, tactically, and ethically. Every profession will soon—if not already—require some fluency in AI. More importantly, every person will need the judgment to decide when and how these tools should be used.
Across the country, AI solutions are springing up, promising to transform how students learn and how teachers teach. The potential is extraordinary, but so are the risks. Used thoughtfully, AI can deepen personalization, free teachers’ time for connection, and expand opportunity. Used carelessly, it can magnify bias, spread misinformation, and narrow learning to what can be easily measured. Some of the most promising efforts illustrate what it looks like to use AI in service of deeper learning rather than efficiency alone.
Coursemojo, for example, is an AI-powered teaching assistant designed to improve reading and writing in grades 3-10. Founded by two former teachers and middle school principals, Dacia Toll and Eric Westendorf, Coursemojo was built to help teachers address one of the most persistent challenges in classrooms: supporting students at very different levels at the same time. Mojo supports teachers by turning existing curriculum and assignments into interactive, conversational experiences. When they need it, students receive scaffolded support, feedback, and follow-up questions without being given the answers, while teachers gain real-time insight into how students are thinking. In a quasi-experimental study of more than 2,200 sixth graders, students using Coursemojo significantly outperformed their peers on state ELA assessments with an eight-point advantage. The gains were especially strong for students furthest from opportunity, reducing achievement gaps for students with disabilities by two-thirds and for economically disadvantaged students by half.
Other human-first AI models are showing similar promise. PeerTeach, for example, uses AI to strengthen peer learning and student-to-student relationships, rather than to increase isolated screen time. The platform supports student pairing and adapts practice problems, but the learning happens through conversation: Students explain their reasoning, ask questions, and coach one another through challenges. In a mixed-methods study, middle school students demonstrated statistically significant growth, with mean proficiency increasing from 38 percent to 65 percent. Here, AI is designed to facilitate human interaction and accelerate learning—not substitute for it.
There is vast potential in AI to personalize practice, surface insights, and extend access to learning in powerful ways. But not every problem can—or should—be solved by a machine. Human judgment and moral reasoning will remain essential skills for both the workplace and democratic life.
In their essay, McGuire and Wilka describe how recent decades of reform narrowed schooling toward what could be easily measured and managed. The risk with AI is that it will reinforce this pattern. If we treat school as a set of measurable outputs, AI will be deployed to optimize for those outputs, such as test scores, whether or not they reflect what students actually need to learn or who they need to become. But if we start from a broader purpose—human thriving in community—AI can be used in service of that aim, supporting deeper learning rather than replacing it.
The most promising new school models show what this looks like in practice. They use technology to expand learning in tangible ways by providing timely feedback, opening access to real-world problems and resources, and personalizing pathways. At the same time, they’re anchoring school in human connection, belonging, and shared purpose. In these environments, students learn that AI is not a substitute for judgment, and that the skills needed to use it responsibly are the same skills needed for life.
In this sense, the work of reinventing school is inseparable from the work of renewing democracy. The question before us is not only how we prepare students for a world shaped by technology but how we prepare them to shape that world themselves.
Redefining the Role of Teachers
As we design and scale new models of learning, we also need to reexamine the core role of the teacher. If we want students to experience something radically different, we have to create systems that allow adults to work differently, too.
In these new models, teaching becomes a shared endeavor, extending beyond the walls of a classroom and inviting a broader circle of people to support young people’s growth.
Community leaders, industry experts, and caregivers all have a role to play in helping students connect learning to life. When a local engineer mentors students on renewable energy projects, or a grandparent volunteers to record oral histories for a social studies unit, students gain not only skills but relationships, perspective, and purpose.
At the same time, we need to redesign the role of professional educators to make this broader vision possible. Today, teachers are expected to guide students through complex, interdisciplinary challenges; to help them use technology and AI ethically and creatively; and to cultivate curiosity, compassion, and critical thinking. But the systems around them haven’t evolved to match those expectations. Too many educators are overburdened and under-supported, with little time to collaborate or reflect. Even the tools meant to help them often add to their workload instead of freeing time for connection and innovation. Great teaching requires protected time to co-plan, examine student work and data, and iterate. Schools need the operational backbone to free up that time.
Some emerging models are showing what it looks like to redesign around that reality. Serving newcomer students nationwide, the Internationals Network organizes teams of five to six teachers around a shared cohort of 75–100 multilingual learners. These teams meet regularly—often daily—to coordinate language development across subjects, align instruction, and personalize support. This structure fundamentally changes how teaching happens. Instead of working in isolation, teachers work as a team, bringing different expertise to support the same group of students and ensuring each student is known across contexts. The result is a more coherent and connected experience for students.
CommunityShare shows how technology can expand and reimagine the role of the teacher. In many schools, the responsibility for connecting learning to the real world falls almost entirely on classroom teachers. CommunityShare’s digital platform, professional learning, and coaching are designed to change that. Through their “digital human library” teachers are matched with scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and other local professionals who co-create real-world learning experiences with students. Across 18 communities, CommunityShare has reached more than 2,100 educators and 89,000 students, with teachers reporting stronger engagement, deeper critical thinking, and clearer connections between school and future opportunities. Notably, 90 percent of surveyed educators say the experience increased their desire to remain in the profession.
Together, these models and their early results signal the potential for a different vision of how technology can support teaching, one that expands what teachers can do and creates the conditions for higher-impact work.
Community leaders, industry experts, and caregivers all have a role to play in helping students connect learning to life.
When we broaden who counts as an educator and position teachers as facilitators of learning rather than deliverers of information, we build stronger schools and stronger communities. Students gain access to real-world expertise, and teachers can focus on guiding thinking, building relationships, and supporting deeper understanding. In these environments, adults and young people learn alongside one another, modeling the shared responsibility that a thriving democracy requires.
A Marshall Plan for Education
For more than 20 years, education leaders have called to “reinvent the factory model of schooling.” That call remains right, but it’s also incomplete. The deeper challenge before us is about purpose and imagination.
McGuire and Wilka argue that we are in a paradigm transition, a period of instability when old assumptions are breaking down and new ones have yet to take hold. In moments like this, institutions either retrench or reinvent themselves. Public education cannot afford the former.
We have the opportunity, and the obligation, to build schools that earn public trust by fulfilling a purpose people can recognize, value, and believe in. Education must create the conditions for every child to thrive, knowing that the strength of our democracy is built on their success.
What would it look like to treat this moment with the urgency of a Marshall Plan for education? If we made a national commitment to prepare young people for a world that’s changing by the day? It will take a shared commitment to a direction and set of principles that will ensure we can serve young people far better than we have before.
In this future:
- Each young person develops the knowledge, skills, agency, compassion, and moral judgment to chart their own path, sustain well-being, and contribute to shared prosperity.
- Learning experiences are rooted in real-world purpose, helping young people see who they are and how they matter.
- Communities work together with schools and other learning settings to cultivate belonging, agency, and trust—seeing every young person as a future maker and a whole person, not just a student.
- Education serves democracy, nurturing the capacity to work across differences, discern truth, and act for collective flourishing.
In this way, education can fulfill its purpose by investing in individuals and equipping them to build strong communities and contribute to a healthy democracy. I believe we can get there, and the genesis for this movement is already underway. But reinvention will not happen through aspiration alone. It requires building a new architecture for how we collaborate, invest, and define success, anchored by a few clear, shared commitments.
First, a coherent north star. We should be able to say, simply and confidently, that every young person deserves strong academics, real preparation for life and work, the ability to participate in civic life, and a deep sense of belonging. Those are goals we can share nationally, even as communities design learning in ways that reflect their own values and context. Without shared guardrails, variation can widen inequity. With shared purpose, variation becomes a strength.
Second, a new way of working. For too long, education innovation has operated on a “lone hero” model—organizations with similar goals competing for funding, recognition, and scale. That approach has helped a few ideas grow quickly, but it has also left others behind and discouraged shared learning. A common public good requires a more collaborative architecture: Innovators and educators working side by side, sharing learning, building infrastructure together rather than jostling for limited resources.
Third, a new approach to funding. If we want different results, we have to fund the work differently. One-time grants cannot sustain structural redesign. We need patient capital—investment that gives leaders time to build, test, learn, and improve. That means funding not just new schools or models, but the enabling conditions that allow them to thrive: strong tools, professional learning, research, and implementation support. Funding for lasting change requires long-term commitment, and the courage to invest in collaboration and shared capacity, not just the next promising idea.
Fourth, true co-creation with communities. As learning expands beyond traditional classrooms, communities will rightly seek the freedom to shape education around their histories, aspirations, and values. But localization must be paired with shared responsibility. The broader ecosystem—funders, policy makers, intermediaries—must help build common definitions of quality, shared ways of learning from evidence, and funding structures that strengthen capacity over time. The goal is not a return to top-down mandates, nor a landscape of disconnected efforts, but aligned local leadership in service of a shared national purpose.
Fifth, disciplined learning and accountability. The north star defines where we are going. Accountability ensures we are getting there. We must be willing to try new models in real settings, learn from what works and what doesn’t, and refine accordingly. We must also hold ourselves accountable to a more comprehensive picture of student thriving, not just test scores, but academic growth, readiness for life and work, civic engagement, and long-term well-being.
Education is how a society renews itself. If we choose reinvention over retreat, our schools can help create a prosperous future defined not by scarcity or fear, but by opportunity, shared prosperity, and democratic vitality—one where young people find purpose, communities find connection, and every child knows they belong.
That is the promise of public education. And it is still within reach.
Read more stories by Frances Messano.