Panel
Progress Report: Education Leaders Sound Off
Milken InstituteLowell Milken, Michael Crow, Nicholas Dirks, Eva Moskowitz, Kristan Van Hook, Pat Miller-Zahler
- Evolutionary changes in higher education are expected to persist, including technological platforms allowing students to earn Cambridge A-levels through game-based learning and a deployed network of 3,400 ASU faculty supporting face-to-face, digital, and distant learning students simultaneously.
- High-speed evolution and change at scale are anticipated as necessary to address the fact that fewer than 10% of the lowest income quartile currently graduate from college.
- $40 trillion in wealth expected to transfer to foundations over the next 30 years from the baby boomer generation is projected to support investments in educational ideas.
- Berkeley is expected to maintain value due to enormous demand, with over 100,000 applications for approximately 5,000 freshman slots.
- A projection suggests that future entrepreneurs and leaders will act as university advocates and donors while helping establish new operational models.
- State funding for Berkeley has dropped to 13% of the budget, significantly lower than the more than 30% provided in 2004, yet the 1960 master plan regarding transfer opportunities remains a shared purpose despite funding and governance challenges.
- The natural hunger to learn present in kindergarteners is expected to be extinguished by the public education system by third grade, necessitating political engagement to ensure alternatives exist and prevent a public education monopoly.
- Plans include creating an "ed institute" to publish an open-source online curriculum featuring high-quality math problems from around the world.
- Support for any educational method that works is expected, even if it contradicts previous political history, to ensure effective education delivery.
- States with good leadership and active reform are predicted to continue progress without federal pressure, whereas states that have stalled will face significantly reduced federal pressure to accomplish goals for young people.
- Competitive funds like Race to the Top are expected to impact state policy, with Tennessee cited as seeing very broad state policy impact from such initiatives.
- Funding for initiatives like "Investing in Innovation" is noted to have peaked at $400 million before declining slightly.
- The era of federal mandates on specific school interventions is viewed as frustrated by the reality that requirements cannot ensure quality, leading to a shift under the ESSA law where states are in the driver's seat for standards while the federal government retains a role in civil rights and the lowest-performing 5% of schools.
- A plan is discussed to have states define educational equity by incentivizing teachers to work in schools with high-need students rather than mandating teacher transfers.