America’s education system was a groundbreaking effort to help a growing nation thrive in the 19th century. Now, 200 years later, the world has changed; the horizon looks drastically different. Collectively, we need to redesign our education system to enable all of our children — and, by extension, our nation — to thrive today and tomorrow. “Horizon Three” or “H3” names the future-ready system we need, one that is grounded in equity serving learners’ individual strengths and needs as well as the common good. This series provides a glimpse of where H3 is already being designed and built. It also includes provocations about how we might fundamentally reimagine learning for the future ahead. You can learn more about the horizons framing here.
By: Thomas Arnett
The frameworks we use to think about the world have profound power to shape the problems we see and the solutions we pursue. Copernicus’s heliocentric model re-defined our understanding of the universe, paving the way for advances in astronomy and physics. Germ theory reframed how we understand, prevent and treat a host of diseases. Enlightenment ideas about individual rights, equality, and legitimate government spurred the American and French revolutions and later contributed to the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and campaigns for civil rights. The successes of the Roman Republic, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the British bicameral legislature, along with the shortfalls of Athenian democracy and European monarchies inspired the system of democratic representation, checks, and balances laid out in the US Constitution. In short, ideas have consequences.
The Three Horizons Framework underpinning this blog series could prove to be this kind of powerful idea for catalyzing change in education—allowing education to finally break free from the industrial batch-processing model of schooling that has remained entrenched for a century.
The Three Horizons organizes perspectives on change in K–12 education into three overlapping categories: Horizon 1 (H1), which focuses on maintaining and optimizing the existing K–12 system, emphasizing traditional practices that meet current demands; Horizon 2 (H2), where innovations and experiments emerge to address immediate challenges and pilot new approaches; and Horizon 3 (H3), which imagines a future-ready education system that breaks away from the constraints of conventional schooling.
The real value of the framework comes from how it enables more productive dialogue between parties that are sometimes at odds: those focused on maintaining conventional education systems (H1), those eager to transform education in response to its shortcomings (H3), and those who experiment with emerging incremental innovations in a transitional space (H2)—sometimes bolstering H1 and sometimes paving the way for H3.
The framework reframes the different perspectives found in each “horizon” from competing ideas at odds over how to shape the future to instead show the value they each offer as they fit into a broader arc of societal progress. By featuring each perspective in a common narrative, the framework can help reduce friction among the stakeholders that hold different views and smooth the path to education’s future.
But for all the benefit the Three Horizons framework offers in advancing dialogue about the future of education, on its own it doesn’t provide a roadmap on how to get there. Many of the factors that could accelerate, hinder, or even stall progress toward reinventing K–12 education are beyond the scope of the framework.
For those who are eager to see the transformation of education happen sooner rather than later, I want to offer three insights for anticipating and working through some of the barriers that lie along the road to H3. These insights derive from Clayton Christensen’s theories of innovation and my work over the last decade studying their application in K–12 education. As a quick preview, these insights include:
- the need for separation between H1 and H3,
- the need for an improvement journey for H3, and
- the need for initial integration across emerging H3 ecosystems.
The most innovative H3 approaches to education—such as competency-based learning, self-directed learning, learning through projects and real-world experiences rather than coursework, and modular learning ecosystems—just aren’t compatible with the priorities and practices of conventional H1 schooling.
Recommendation One: H3 Needs Separation From H1
The Three Horizons framework may be a valuable tool for fostering dialogue between H1 and H3, but don’t assume that transforming education will, therefore, be a collaborative project between these parties. The most innovative H3 approaches to education—such as competency-based learning, self-directed learning, learning through projects and real-world experiences rather than coursework, and modular learning ecosystems—just aren’t compatible with the priorities and practices of conventional H1 schooling.
This is a reality we’ve seen consistently across a wide range of sectors. It wasn’t department stores that figured out discount retail, and it wasn’t Blockbuster that figured out streaming video. These innovations had to emerge from new entrants because the codified priorities and practices of established industry leaders systematically steered them away from certain types of innovation. In a similar fashion, IBM was only able to develop PCs by setting up a subsidiary unit that was organizationally independent from its mainframe computer business. Likewise, Dayton Hudson relied on autonomy and organizational separation to create Target. The same organizational inertia is why H3 learning environments have to emerge independently from H1 schools.
Taking a closer look at this problem within education, we see that efforts to rethink conventional schooling within established schools often meet resistance for completely understandable reasons. Most parents tend to trust the system they know; most students get frustrated if the rules of the game of school get changed on them; and most educators, trained and experienced in H1 settings, naturally lean toward improving what works for them rather than diving into radically different approaches that are unknown and uncertain. Similarly, most teacher preparation programs and policymakers have invested in conventional schools and, therefore, favor maintaining and optimizing the current system over reinventing it. All of these groups may voice support for transforming K–12 learning experiences. But at the end of the day, transformation requires hard tradeoffs. When a call to move to H3 means upending the practices and priorities many people still rely on, nominal supporters become sources of resistance.
Hence, new H3 learning ecosystems need autonomy from the policies, bureaucracies, and accountability metrics that state agencies and district offices use to regulate conventional H1 schools. This is why many innovative new approaches to learning today are finding legs in the private microschooling space—where most policies and administrative structures that govern conventional schools don’t apply. Within public education, charter schooling can sometimes be an avenue to gain needed autonomy from district and state policies designed for H1 schooling. Similarly, new approaches to learning created within districts can often secure autonomy as virtual schools, hybrid homeschools, alternative schools, or career and technical education (CTE) programs.
In short, the Three Horizons framework can be a valuable tool for persuading district and state leaders to support H3 innovation efforts. But their support needs to translate into creating space for H3 models to take root independently from the systems, structures, and policies designed for H1 schooling. Otherwise, H3 efforts will ultimately collapse into the gravitational pull of H1.
Recommendation Two: H3 Needs an Improvement Journey
Advocates for H3 believe strongly that H3 learning is better for students. But this isn’t the opinion held by most students and families.
Last year, the Christensen Institute studied what motivates families to leave conventional schools for unconventional options like microschools. From that research we saw a consistent pattern: families’ decisions to switch were usually precipitated by poignant moments of struggle. Some told stories of being worn down by the daily battle to get their child out of bed and out the door to a school the child dreaded. Others voice prolonged anxiety about changes happening at their child’s school that they had no ability to influence.
But the families we interviewed don’t represent most families. They’re early adopters, not the early majority. Yes, many students and families, like those we interviewed, can point to the frustrations they have with conventional schooling. But for the majority, the frustrations they feel aren’t painful enough to drive them to make a change. The benefits of switching to an H3 learning experience just don’t outweigh the drawbacks of breaking their daily routines and giving up parts of conventional schooling that they still want. Their current day-to-day experiences may seem unengaging, shallow, stressful, or irrelevant. But despite those drawbacks, conventional schooling is still the tried-and-true path to college, the place where many students enjoy sports and extracurriculars, and the place where most of their friends go to school. So, they stick with their conventional schools.
What should H3 proponents do in light of this reality? First, don’t assume that marketing or movement building will drive H3 into the mainstream. Crossing the chasm from early adopters to the early majority isn’t going to come from persuading people that they should change their priorities and want something different for their children.
Instead, recognize that disruptive innovations only go mainstream after a journey of improvement. It wasn’t the first Apple computer that disrupted Digital Equipment Corp. It wasn’t Netflix’s rent-by-mail DVDs that disrupted Blockbuster. Early Nokia camera phones weren’t the disruptors of Kodak. Nor was it the early Sony pocket radio that disrupted RCA. All of these innovations had to evolve over time into more advanced solutions in order to gain mainstream appeal.
In a similar manner, for H3 to move mainstream, those building H3 learning experiences and ecosystems need to figure out how to lessen the tradeoffs students and families face when they consider picking an H3 learning option. For example, some families worry that H3 learning experiences aren’t rigorous enough to set their child up for good college opportunities. Therefore, H3 programs need to get better at demonstrating that their graduates—regardless of background—have consistent access to good college opportunities. Or, alternatively, they need to show that their graduates’ career and life prospects are just as promising as those of students on the college route.
Some students don’t want to miss out on experiences like band, sports, or theater by choosing H3 learning experiences. Therefore, H3 leaders need to figure out how to offer their students comparable experiences. They might partner with conventional schools so students can get the best of both worlds. Or they might work with community organizations—youth sports leagues, community arts programs, etc.—to line students up with comparable experiences.
Fortunately, H3 ecosystems aren’t starting from zero. As this blog series showcases, many H3 pioneers have been making improvements like these for decades and, in the process, have moved H3 steadily closer to the mainstream. For instance, Ted Sizer started advancing ideas for H3 education in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s, those ideas inspired the creation of The Met High School in Rhode Island. The learning designs developed at The Met have since spread through Big Picture Learning (BPL) to over 275 schools around the world. More recently, BPL schools in Australia have also created the International BPL Credential, an alternative to traditional diplomas and transcripts that are accepted by at least 17 universities in Australia and are being piloted in other parts of the world. Other efforts, such as the XQ Competencies, the Future9 Competencies, and the Mastery Transcript Consortium, are likewise chipping away at various barriers that inhibit mainstream adoption of H3 learning experiences.
Each H3 ecosystem will need to figure out the improvements that will smooth the transition to H3 learning for students and families in its community. But across the board, H3 ecosystems all need to set their sights on pursuing evolutions and improvements that make what they offer more compelling to a wider array of students and families.
[S]upport needs to translate into creating space for H3 models to take root independently from the systems, structures, and policies designed for H1 schooling. Otherwise, H3 efforts will ultimately collapse into the gravitational pull of H1.
Recommendation Three: H3 Ecosystems Need Integration
When the third horizon eventually reaches adoption at scale, it won’t just be an array of schools that break the conventional mold. Rather, a mature H3 will require a whole new ecosystem of players that rise up to support H3 learning—new teacher talent pipelines, new curriculum providers, new transcripts, new assessment systems, new out-of-school learning partners, etc.
Given the widespread and common need for solutions that complement H3 learning, it will be tempting for funders or policymakers to try to create field-wide solutions. However, innovation theory indicates that a premature jump to field-wide solutions will likely slow the progress of Horizon 3.
In the early phase of any new system, there are lots of unpredictable interdependencies between the system’s components. It takes experimentation and iteration to figure out how to get the components working together so that the system can reliably deliver desired outcomes. Experimentation and iteration happen best when the designers of a system are able to develop all the interdependent components together. Early on, a highly integrated system gives designers the greatest freedom to adjust different components until they figure out exactly what each component needs to do and how all the components need to work together. In contrast, early efforts to specify the parts of a system so that different players can provide those parts independently prematurely constrains the freedom of system designers and thereby slows or even caps their ability to get the whole system working.
As an example, in the early days of the mainframe computer industry, IBM could not have existed as an independent manufacturer of mainframe computers because manufacturing was unpredictably interdependent with the design process for the whole mainframe system: the machines, operating systems, core memory, and logic circuitry. Specifying how these discrete features of the system should fit together was essentially impossible at the outset. If the company had tried to separate each of the components—for example, subcontracting the operating system to one outlet and logic circuits to another—the product would have suffered. The company would have been forced to back away prematurely from the frontier of what was possible in raw performance had it chosen to specify these constituent parts too early.
In order to succeed in the manufacture and sale of mainframe computers, IBM had to integrate backward through all of the parts of the value chain of its production that were not yet well understood and established. IBM had to build the logic circuitry, the application software, the memory systems, and so on. Each one of those systems had to be designed interdependently with the other systems. A change in one part of a memory system might necessitate a tweak in the application software, which could, in turn, cause a change in how all the pieces fit together. All of this was unpredictable, and fixing or specifying any one interface would have detracted from IBM’s iterative design and innovation process. As a result, IBM essentially had to do everything in order to do anything.
What does this mean for Horizon 3? It means that early innovators should ideally develop many parts of the ecosystem in-house before the parts of the learning ecosystem can be modularized and outsourced to external providers. For example, early versions of new assessment systems should be developed by the learning providers themselves—perhaps working together in tight-knit partnerships—not by large external assessment developers looking to address the needs of the whole H3 landscape. Learning experience providers need the ability to make ongoing adjustments to their assessment systems based on their particular needs as they figure out how to get the right data for driving continuous improvement, attracting families, and demonstrating their impact. Similarly, the most effective educator talent pipelines won’t come from convening experts to write field-wide standards for H3 educator preparation. Rather, the best talent pipelines will be those that members of a learning ecosystem create for themselves so that they can ensure their staff is equipped to advance their particular goals.
Eventually, when H3 ecosystems reach maturity, it will make sense to write common standards for the components of the ecosystem and then outsource those components to specialized players. (This is what later happened with IBM’s computers.) But in the early days of H3, premature standards and modularization will be detrimental to the success of the field.
Given the widespread and common need for solutions that complement H3 learning, it will be tempting for funders or policymakers to try to create field-wide solutions. However innovation theory indicates that a premature jump to field-wide solutions will likely slow the progress of Horizon 3.
Conclusion
The Three Horizons Framework offers a compelling vision of a transformed future for K-12 education, but achieving that future requires more than vision and productive dialogue. Fortunately, innovation theory illuminates some of the roadblocks that could stand in our way and offers some recommendations to overcome them. Funders and policymakers, in particular, should keep these recommendations and roadblocks in mind as they resource the development of H3. By ensuring Horizon 3 has the space to grow independently, an improvement trajectory, and early integration, we can help H3 become more than just a distant vision—we can make it the future of education.
Thomas Arnett is a senior research fellow in education for the Christensen Institute whose work focuses on the changing roles of teachers in blended-learning environments and other innovative educational models
This blog series is sponsored by LearnerStudio, a non-profit organization accelerating progress towards a future of learning where young people are inspired and prepared to thrive in the Age of AI – as individuals, in careers, in their communities and our democracy. Curation of this series is led by Sujata Bhatt, founder of Incubate Learning, which is focused on reconnecting humans to their love of learning and creating.
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