America’s education system is flailing. The list of challenges is long, from declining academic performance to alarming trends in student engagement and well-being. These challenges come at a time of major changes to our workforce and society, raising questions about whether schools are equipped to prepare the next generation of workers and citizens.
Perhaps most troubling, as our challenges have become more urgent and complex, our ability to address them seems to have deteriorated. Education has become a central battleground in the nation’s culture wars. We have lurched from one bitterly fought issue to the next, making little progress on those issues or the many other priorities they have crowded out.
A new education initiative from Brookings aims to cut through the noise and chart a path toward a more constructive, collaborative era of policymaking. We start from the premise that Americans likely agree more than it seems on what they want from schools. We will hear from a wide range of stakeholders—parents, educators, the public, and students themselves—to test that premise and ground our work. We will provide customized data and actionable, research-informed guidance to local decisionmakers who are working to give their students the best possible opportunities. And we will convene a diverse group of leaders to craft a policy agenda equipped to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
We call this initiative “Forward to basics.” Many Americans are expressing a desire to get adults’ politics out of children’s classrooms and refocus schools on their core, basic work. Yet with a new set of challenges, we know that going back isn’t an option. We need a forward-looking agenda, grounded in Americans’ desires and informed by cutting-edge research, to usher in an era of educational improvement and innovation.