Ted Fujimoto: Seizing Educational Excellence By the Throat and Not Letting Go

Are there any ed tech products or companies in particular that you’re watching?
This space is so noisy with lots of products that have limited educational impact. I look for products that (a) have a pedagogical center to deeper learning; (b) help schools build a culture through strengthening relationships, communication, and collaboration; and (c) help teachers and students calibrate and assess the quality and authenticity of their learning. I’m under [non-disclosure agreement] with a few companies. Suffice it to say there is exciting next-generation work coming out in the area of integration of music and arts in learning that will blow your mind.

What’s the New Tech Network, and how does it work?
New Tech Network – along with groups like Big Picture Learning, Expeditionary Learning, and Institute for Student Achievement – are ‘whole-school design,’ deeper learning models that have carefully constructed design elements that directly address instructional practices, school culture, and systems to support.

New Tech Network has more than 200 schools and is growing about 20—40 schools a year, mostly as transformed district schools and then some charter schools. Any community that wants to transform their existing schools or launch new ones can leverage nearly 20 years of experience and not try to cobble individual design elements from scratch. They provide end-to-end training, coaching, and tools for teachers and administrators over 4—5 years to help communities implement their school designs with fidelity. These school designs are producing superior results across all socioeconomic groups of students in graduation rates, college persistence, and workforce skills.

Tell me about the Right to Succeed Foundation and why it’s necessary.
Nationally, only 25% of students today are receiving the education they need to qualify for a middle-class, paying job or even to be hired by the U.S. military. This means 20 years from now, if this trajectory continues, 75% of Americans will not be able to pay for themselves.

It is important to transform the educational experience for the majority of American kids within the next 10 years to change this trajectory. We need to do it at scale to pass a tipping point in this transformation. What this means to me is that 30,000 schools need to be transformed.

One way to do this is to create 6,000 demonstration schools using replicable school designs that can help transform others in their communities. We are calling this the American Dream Schools initiative.

I founded Right to Succeed Foundation because when I talked to communities, parents, and educational leaders around the country, very few could articulate what a great school could be. What I heard was lots about what they didn’t like.

For any transformation to take place, I think it’s important that you are clear about what you are fighting for, not just what you are fighting against. Right To Succeed creates community and national-level awareness on what great education can look like, makes communities aware of replicable whole-school designs that will make it much easier for them to be successful in transforming their schools, and works with policymakers to build a more supportive environment in terms of regulation and resources for communities to implement these school designs with fidelity.

What are you looking forward to in education for 2016?
With the new ESSA in place, I hope that states will use the flexibility to create policies and direct resources to support the adoption of replicable, deeper learning, whole-school designs using a powerful school culture of trust, respect, responsibility, and excellence, coupled with using project-based learning authentically tied to student interest, passions, and real-world problems. I challenge every state to produce initiatives – not to just try to fix the bottom 5% of schools, but transform a third of their schools.

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