Why a network?

We propose to start a Network for Public Knowledge on Educational Opportunity to help the public investigate ways of increasing young people’s opportunities to learn. The people who interact with young people on a daily basis need to share and debate ideas for improving young people’s educational pathways. Policy efforts alone cannot “fix” education from above; nor does knowledge on “what works” automatically trickle down from universities and get shared across localities. Instead, educators, mentors, families, and students themselves need direct access to the best knowledge available about improving and increasing learning opportunities for young people.

We argue that a national network is needed not just to disseminate research knowledge to the public, but even more importantly to link "ordinary people" in sharing exciting successes in education, and struggles to make things better in education. We contend that in order to inquire into improving education inside their communities, people need to see examples from other places, of what is possible in supporting the learning and development of young people. The Network would allow people to share knowledge on efforts that support young people not only to acquire fundamental academic skills and graduate college-ready, but also to become intellectually invigorated, creatively inspired, confident, socially competent, and healthy people who are prepared to be innovators and problem-solvers in 21st-century communities.

We believe that the ultimate public network would show the public 1) examples of exciting learning going on in classrooms, museums, and libraries around the country (like MacArthur’s projects), and 2) examples of successes from community organizing, school reform, parent engagement, and service coordination efforts around the country (from projects of the kind that Ford is funding). We have suggested that a combined, collectively designed, public-facing Network might equip the public with a full range of ideas and examples for improving the lives of young people in the United States. We also argue for a public network that would engage not just academics, but people of all ages and roles in “reporting out” examples of exciting education-related initiatives in their locales.

In particular, people need a *searchable* network, enabling them to find people struggling or succeeding on similar issues in similar situations (e.g., people who have figured out ways to translate documents quickly in multilingual schools). People also need a basic space to communicate, find each other, create subcommunities, and share information about exciting efforts in education. The Network also needs to link people to researchers and program designers, but it also needs to engage more people than just academics: people building and trying and experiencing things in their local school should have a voice in the conversation. So should young people who are the target (or producers) of specific efforts to assist young people. Thus, the Network will also allow more people weighing in on what they think is good. With more voices weighing in on "what works" in education, this Network should also broaden, once again, the definition of educational improvement beyond test score improvement alone.

Thus, the Network will link local actors around kids (peers, parents, teachers, and community members who share local ecosystems with kids) into a national ecosystem of people sharing ideas about making life better for kids. It takes a local network to raise a child; it takes a national network to brainstorm the ideas for doing it.

Using evidence from previous knowledge aggregation projects and making reference to the flow of history, we will argue that a shared example network around education is inevitable.

Current efforts are on the right track, but aren't sufficient to satisfy the ultimate need that a network could complete. We intend to create a set of reference documents to encourage an eventual network that we describe. In the meantime we hope to recommend to current efforts methodologies that will allow their effort to further the ultimate goals of a network.