While I appreciate the effort of the billionaires, I largely think that this type of "redesign" is more of a bandage than a cure. I think that there are some mu

While I appreciate the effort of the billionaires, I largely think that this type of "redesign" is more of a bandage than a cure. I think that there are some much greater fundamental systemic problems the go far beyond not "thinking bigger". My beliefs are somewhat extreme in this topic, but I will share anyway. In broad strokes: 1. One of the biggest problems is that education has come to be ruled by the administrators. They are not servant leaders, rather they are aristocrats. Their pawns are students, faculty, parents, and taxpayers. These stakeholders need more influence in the decision-making process. 2. Mandatory schooling (both explicit and implicit) could easily stop at 8th grade with the goal of basic numeracy and literacy as well as fundamental learning skills. These skills will provide enough education for the graduates to function in society as well as move forward in the education system if/when they choose to do so. Currently, most of high school (and middle school, frankly) is just very expensive and inefficient baby sitting. 3. That said, secondary, tertiary, and trade-based education should be widely available, of high quality, and low price -- probably subsidized heavily by the state -- throughout a person's life. Many people do not realize the value of education and learning until they are older, and our current system does a relatively poor job accommodating these people. 4. Overall curriculum design needs to focus on autonomous learning (touched on in the article). Note that this means that the learner takes responsibility for their learning, not someone else (e.g., teachers). Also note that this does not obviate teachers, rather it just makes them one of many sources of knowledge/learning. Anecdotally, I have seen this type of system pull off what many would consider to be miracles. 5. Learning in general should be much more contextualized and (when practicable) experiential. Many/most students do not see how the current curriculum content applies to them. The current content seems to be related to, and largely is a product of, the type of education upper middle class people want. Folks from other walks of life actually have a lot of curiosity and a high capacity to learn, but taking part in the current curriculum would turn them into an alien within their community (e.g., non-native English speaker being beaten/abused for speaking English well). Few people are willing to do this. 6. Assessment should lean much more heavily on portfolios than on standardized tests. Don't get me wrong, standardized tests have their place, but currently they are overused and are often times misused. This is an issue I very passionate about. Please let me know via a response here if you would like to discuss this more.