Community Vision: Community Need

Getting Smart Resources

A New Operating System for Public Education: Learner-Centered Ecosystems

A New Operating System for Public Education: Learner-Centered Ecosystems” by Getting Smart presents a framework for fundamentally reimagining how public education is structured, moving away from the traditional standardized, compliance-driven model toward flexible, personalized learning environments that center student agency and need. The resource articulates the case for why the current system architecture is misaligned with the demands of modern learners and society, offering a compelling vision for what a redesigned public education ecosystem could look like at a systems level. It provides school leaders and practitioners with language, concepts, and a rationale for advocating and designing toward learner-centered transformation, making it particularly useful for those building the case for change within their communities or districts. For educators working to shift culture and structures, this resource serves as both an intellectual grounding and a strategic starting point for conversations about deeper, more durable innovation.

Podcast: Jennifer Purcell on Future Ready Oregon and a Future Ready Workforce

This Getting Smart podcast episode features Jennifer Purcell discussing Future Ready Oregon, a statewide initiative focused on aligning education systems with the evolving demands of the workforce. The conversation explores how Oregon is rethinking pathways from K-12 through postsecondary education to ensure students graduate with the skills, credentials, and experiences needed for career success in a changing economy. Purcell offers practitioners and school leaders a concrete example of how state-level policy and systemic collaboration can drive meaningful educational transformation, making it a valuable resource for those working to connect learning outcomes to real-world relevance. For leaders grappling with vision-building and the question of what education should ultimately prepare students for, this episode provides both strategic perspective and practical insight into what future-ready learning can look like at scale.

Podcast: Sonoma County’s Approach to Career and Technical Education and Pathways

This Getting Smart podcast examines how Sonoma County has developed its approach to Career and Technical Education (CTE) and structured student pathways, offering practitioners and school leaders a real-world model for connecting academic learning to career readiness. The episode explores the county’s strategic vision for CTE, including how local education agencies have aligned programs with regional workforce needs and created coherent pathways that give students meaningful direction beyond graduation. Listeners gain insight into the systemic thinking, partnerships, and leadership decisions that have shaped Sonoma County’s approach, making it a useful case study for districts grappling with how to make learning more relevant and purposeful. For education leaders seeking to build or strengthen CTE infrastructure, this podcast provides concrete framing around the “why” and “how” of pathway development at a regional scale.

Podcast: Jennifer Mellor and Mike Huckins on How Chambers of Commerce Can Get Involved in Accelerated Pathways

This Getting Smart podcast features Jennifer Mellor and Mike Huckins discussing the role that Chambers of Commerce can play in supporting and expanding accelerated pathways for students, such as dual enrollment, early college, and career-connected learning programs. The conversation explores how business and civic organizations can move beyond passive endorsement to become active partners in designing and funding pathways that connect young people to workforce opportunities faster and more equitably. For school leaders and practitioners working on systems change, the resource offers concrete framing around why community and employer voices are essential to making accelerated pathways sustainable and scalable. It speaks directly to the vision-building phase of transformation, helping educators understand that reimagining student timelines requires aligning not just internal school structures but the broader economic and civic ecosystem in which schools operate.

Podcast: Todd Smith and Stacey Ocander on Pathways Strategies to Address the Healthcare Workforce Shortage in Nebraska and Beyond

This Getting Smart podcast features Todd Smith and Stacey Ocander discussing concrete pathways strategies designed to address the growing healthcare workforce shortage in Nebraska and across the country. The conversation explores how educational systems can build intentional pipelines that connect students to healthcare careers earlier, aligning curriculum, credentials, and work-based learning opportunities with real regional workforce demands. For practitioners and school leaders, the resource offers practical insight into how cross-sector partnerships between schools, healthcare employers, and community organizations can be structured to produce meaningful outcomes for both students and industries facing critical staffing gaps. It matters for education transformation because it grounds the broader conversation about career pathways in an urgent, real-world problem, demonstrating how vision and need intersect when schools take seriously their role in economic and community vitality.

More Real World Learning in Kansas City

More Real World Learning in Kansas City” is a Getting Smart resource documenting efforts to expand real-world, experiential learning opportunities across Kansas City schools and districts. It examines how local educators, community partners, and district leaders are working together to connect students with authentic learning experiences beyond the traditional classroom, including work-based learning, community projects, and industry partnerships. The resource makes a compelling case for why conventional schooling falls short of preparing students for real-world demands, grounding that argument in specific local examples rather than abstract theory. For practitioners and school leaders, it offers both inspiration and practical context for building the kinds of community ecosystems that make deeper, relevant learning possible at scale. It is particularly valuable for those in the early stages of articulating a vision for learning transformation, as it illustrates what the shift toward relevance and real-world application can look like in a specific urban context.

Education and the Economy: How Might Education Shape the Future of How We Live and Work

This Getting Smart resource examines the relationship between education systems and economic futures, exploring how schooling can be deliberately designed to influence how people will live and work rather than simply respond to labor market demands. It offers practitioners and school leaders a framework for thinking expansively about education’s role in shaping economic conditions, workforce readiness, and societal outcomes, moving beyond narrow skills-training toward a broader vision of human and economic flourishing. The resource tackles the foundational question of purpose — why education exists and what it should produce — which is essential groundwork for any meaningful innovation effort. For leaders navigating curriculum redesign, school model development, or strategic planning, this kind of vision-building resource matters because transformation efforts without a clear economic and social rationale tend to lack coherence and staying power. Understanding the education-economy relationship helps school leaders make principled decisions about what to prioritize and why.

Strong Start for Michigan’s Future of Learning Council

Strong Start for Michigan’s Future of Learning Council, produced by Getting Smart, is a strategic resource designed to help education leaders articulate and build the case for transforming Michigan’s learning ecosystem from the ground up. It examines the urgent need for a compelling, shared vision that centers student outcomes and prepares young people for a rapidly changing world, making the argument that systemic change requires clarity of purpose before structural or policy shifts can take hold. The resource offers frameworks and evidence-based rationale that school leaders and policymakers can use to galvanize community stakeholders around a coherent direction for learning innovation. For practitioners and system leaders, it matters because vision-setting is often the most overlooked yet foundational step in education transformation—without it, reform efforts fragment, stall, or fail to sustain momentum across political and institutional cycles.

Additional Resources

Ecosystems for the Future of Learning

Education Reimagined and History Co: Lab, in partnership with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Ecosystems for the Future of Learning” is a collaborative resource from Education Reimagined, History Co:Lab, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that examines the structural and cultural conditions necessary to sustain learner-centered education at scale. The resource moves beyond individual school transformation to argue that lasting change requires interconnected ecosystems — networks of communities, institutions, and practitioners aligned around a shared vision for learning. It offers practitioners and school leaders frameworks for understanding how systemic relationships, trust, and shared purpose function as foundational infrastructure for innovation, rather than treating transformation as an isolated institutional effort. For leaders navigating the tension between reforming existing systems and building new ones, this resource provides grounding in why vision and ecosystem thinking must precede and shape strategy, making it particularly valuable for those at early or inflection points in their transformation work.

Shift: How Cultivating an Ecosystem Remade Pittsburgh’s Learning Landscape

Remake Learning)
Shift” is a report from Remake Learning that chronicles how Pittsburgh and the surrounding Allegheny County region deliberately built a collaborative learning ecosystem over more than a decade, transforming how schools, nonprofits, universities, libraries, and community organizations work together to reimagine education. The resource documents the structures, relationships, and conditions that enabled systemic change, offering practitioners and leaders a concrete case study in what cross-sector collaboration looks like at scale. It makes the case that meaningful education transformation requires moving beyond individual school improvement toward cultivating shared vision and distributed leadership across an entire regional community. For school leaders exploring innovation, it provides both inspiration and practical insight into how ecosystems — not isolated institutions — drive lasting change.

Community-connected learning in community schools: Why it is essential for whole-school transformation

Brookings
This Brookings resource examines community-connected learning as a foundational element of community schools, making the case for why deep integration between schools and their surrounding communities is not optional but essential to genuine whole-school transformation. It offers practitioners and school leaders a research-grounded rationale for moving beyond surface-level partnerships toward sustained, reciprocal relationships that shape curriculum, culture, and student outcomes. The resource addresses the “Vision: Need” stage of innovation, helping leaders articulate *why* community connection must be central to their transformation strategy rather than an add-on program. For educators working to build more equitable and responsive schools, this piece provides the conceptual foundation and evidence base needed to align stakeholders around a community-centered vision before implementation begins.