Public education has evolved through two eras in America and is poised at the dawn of a third. The one room school house served us well during the agricultural era. The workforce of the industrial age was honed in factory-like school buildings where rows and rows of children moved through an educational pipeline in conveyor belt fashion, absorbing patterned lessons, much of it by rote. Ours is no longer an industrial economy. We are well into the information age, so whither education in the 21st century? In our view there are three major considerations that should guide the evolution and modernization of public education for America’s future:  career orientation, small learning communities, and curriculum integration.   Unique though Washington, DC may be as an economy, still we believe that these are the principles that should guide education reform in the Nation’s Capitol.

Ivory tower notions aside, it is clear is that the structure of public education in America is industry driven. A fruitful direction for the evolution of public education in the modern era, then, would be to make that connection explicit. A defining characteristic of education in America is local control. It therefore makes further sense that the place where this connection would most organically be made is to local industry. The local industry in Washington DC is the Federal Government, with all the ancillary economic activity – law firms, lobbyists, contractors, public relations firms, think tanks, national and international associations, etc. – that locate here because of the presence of the Federal Government. So the first guiding principle for the evolution of a modern system of public education in the nation’s capital is to incorporate the workforce needs of the local federal economy.

The evidence that small learning communities are effective is overwhelming. The positive effects of small learning communities have been proven repeatedly over an almost 20-year time span, with a clarity and at a level of confidence rare, if not unheard of in education research. Small learning communities both increase student achievement -- indicated by standardized test scores and rate of college attendance -- as well as diminish the unwanted behavior and social problems plaguing many of our schools including discipline, substance abuse problems, and teen pregnancy. A generation’s worth of research shows us two things: size is an important factor in the functioning of K-12 schools, and smaller is better.

Curriculum integration is an educational approach that prepares children for lifelong learning and twenty-first century workforce participation. While the traditional approach to education comprises separate, departmentalized subject matter, curriculum integration views education as a process for developing the interrelated abilities required by life in the new millennium.  The integrative approach links subject matter across, for example, the humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, social studies, music and art with experiences outside of school in a meaningful association that facilitates broad and in-depth understanding. Skills and knowledge are developed and applied in more than one area of study. Curriculum integration prepares students by helping them learn to connect concepts and information in a way that extends beyond a superficial understanding of multiple isolated events.  The approach views learning and teaching in a holistic way and reflects the interactive nature of the real world.

We believe that public education reform efforts guided by these three principles will create an educational infrastructure that will serve us well into the next century.