A roundup of education issues in 2016 and predictions for 2017

As the New Year turns, I’ve encountered a variety of roundups of key education issues and trends in 2016 and predictions from 2017, including The Stories That Shaped Edtech in 2016 Edsurge; Philanthropy Awards, 2016 and Philanthropy in the Age of Trump:  Six Predictions from Inside Philanthropy; CityLab salutes the best ideas of 2016 CityLab; Education issues to watch in 2017 – and predictions of what to expect EdSource; 5 Education Stories To Watch In 2017, NPR.  Predictably, these and other forecasters are focused on the possible Trump effect in education, though, if we learned anything in 2016 it was how unpredictable things (particularly politics in the US) can be.  While I don’t know what will happen in 2017, there are a number of questions, I’ll continue to ask:

What will students have a choice of…? There is no doubt that school choice will be in the news (as it already has been).  Already forgotten, however, is the fact that even if policies put choice into practice, many students will still have few schools from which to choose.  Further, those choices are likely to be limited, and those choices may not include particularly effective schools or match those students’ interests and needs.

Will the new new schools be any different than the old new schools?  Maybe efforts like the XQ Project will help to create choices that better match students’ interests and needs?  Rick Hess and others like Inside Philanthropy are wondering about questions like these as well. I look at it from the perspective of someone who worked in and studied the new school models developed as part of the New American Schools initiative in the 1990’s.  And while I expect efforts to create new schools will continue (and I hope they succeed), I don’t yet see how creating some new schools, charter or non-charter, will suddenly, finally, catalyze significant changes and improvements in schools across the country.

Will personalization actually change instruction? Michael Horn breaks down the hype on one of 2016’s most used bits of education jargon and suggests we focus on personalizing rather than on personalization.  That seems like a wise move, but it remains to be seen whether personalizing instruction really gets beyond matching students and topics or adjusting levels of difficulty.  In 2017, will we see more widespread examples in which instruction includes regular adaptation of pedagogical strategies, and different kinds of scaffolding, tools, and support for different learners?  Will personalizing education ever mean that students can choose to pursue the personally meaningful goals that go beyond those traditionally valued in schools, in colleges, and, ultimately, even in the current supply and demand economy? Should it?

How will the economy affect education? While many claim education drives the economy, over and over again the economy shapes and limits what education can achieve.  More and more that means, even as many educators commit themselves to reducing inequality, our society is becoming less equitable (as “The top charts from 2016” from EPI often demonstrate). Even as many predict that the economy could continue to grow in 2017, what new and pioneering efforts can ensure that those benefits actually address rather than exacerbate inequities?  While I don’t know the answer to that question, both universal basic income (What Would Happen If We Just Gave People Money? FiveThirtyEight; Radical Idea? The New Funding Around a Basic Income Inside Philanthropy) and the block-chain “revolution” (How blockchains could change the world McKinsey & Co) could affect the economy, education and equity in 2017 and beyond may be worth watching.

                                      — Thomas Hatch