Seth Godin writes:

Parents, taxpayers, citizens, let’s not waste another year. What happens if every teacher and school board member starts discussing what school is for? …

One last thing to think about: What would happen to our society if we spent twice as much time and money on education as we do now? And not just on the wealthy, but on everyone, especially on everyone. …

The real win is creating a generation that actually delights in learning.

There are two significant obstacles to realizing the sort of culture Godin’s calling for:

1. The more we attempt to nationalize our educational system at the federal level, the less likely it is that a diverse, dynamic set of competing models can come into existence.
2. So long as we’re focused on creating models for education, rather than decentralizing education, there will be powerful people and groups who work to suck value from that system.

If Darwin is right we don’t need the “strongest” or most “intelligent” national education policy, we need a spectrum of approaches that make American education the “most responsive to change.”

This means that any meaningful conversation on reforming education policy starts with rejecting national solutions, and recognizing that 239 years into the American experiment, public education no longer needs to mean government-managed education.