7 School Design Principles for Education’s Next Horizon

By Sujata Bhatt and Mason Pashia

Education is always an abstraction, prioritizing some things while leaving others out. The system many are doubling down on or tinkering around the edges of is a 19th-century blueprint, built around fixed subjects, standardized tests, and age-based progression. At its core are content standards—defining what every student should know and when—shaped by an era when mass education functioned to sort students into largely predefined roles in society. 

But in an age of AI and automation, a new abstraction is needed—one that values agency, adaptability, creativity, critical thinking, and the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. While the system reinforces the old model, this series has sought to highlight schools, districts, educators, students, and organizations at the edges who are already proving what a new, currently relevant abstraction for education could be—one where knowledge is learned in order to be able to do things in the world, rather than primarily take tests.

While the standardized model remains dominant, forward-thinking schools, educators, and communities are redefining education. These models, some new and some which have been around for decades embrace curiosity, adaptability, relevance, and student agency, moving beyond the constraints of the 19th-century blueprint. They look at the purpose of education first and foremost as human development, and they seek to develop young people into continually learning, thriving adults with strong personal and peer relationship skills, sustaining careers, and a commitment to civic engagement.

Below are 7 design principles for H3 learning environments that we extracted from the 24 different stories in this series. You can navigate the resource(s) by clicking on the blogs related to each topic.

To move to the next horizon of learning, we must shift…

1. From Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery
2. From One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning
3. From Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry
4. From Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning
5. From Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities
6. From Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment
7. From Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets

Mathematics

Instead of a narrow emphasis on algebra and calculus, H3 models prioritize real-world numeracy—data science, probability & statistics, and computational thinking—and experiential pedagogy from early childhood on.

Literacy

Students engage in multimodal literacy, analyzing AI-generated content, synthesizing digital and visual data, and creating across platforms.

Grade Levels

H3 education moves away from fixed grade levels, prioritizing learning that is personalized, flexible, and designed for mastery over seat time.

Pathways

Instead of rigid academic tracks, students design their own learning pathways, integrating hands-on projects, internships, and problem-solving experiences.

Agency

Even infants demonstrate agency, meaning schools should be designed to cultivate curiosity, independence, and creative problem-solving from the very start and all the way through. They should also engage young people in their design.

New Mindsets

Instead of passive learning, H3 schools cultivate creative problem-solvers, emphasizing entrepreneurial thinking, design methodologies, and applied STEM—for students, teachers, leaders and all adults in the system.

AI & Automation

AI and automation reshape learning—students focus on how to think, analyze, and create rather than just recall information.

Real-World Learning

Students solve complex, real-world problems across disciplines rather than isolated subject blocks where High Quality Instructional Materials don’t mean scripted curricula but rather meaningful, rigorous projects designed by adults and students with AI support.

Inquiry-Based Learning

Learning is structured around big questions and challenges, such as sustainability, AI ethics, and entrepreneurship, rather than rigid subjects and grounded in past, present, future, and place.

Community Partnerships

Education extends beyond the classroom into communities, leveraging local organizations, businesses, and mentors to create relevant, hands-on experiences.

Lifelong Learning

Schools act as hubs for lifelong learning, connecting students with professionals, civic leaders, and emerging industries as well as communities’ histories and wisdom.

Accountability

H3 accountability focuses on performance-based learning, where students demonstrate knowledge through portfolios, capstone projects, and real-world applications.

Assessment

Rather than compliance-driven testing, assessment systems support continuous growth and adaptability—aligning with how learning actually happens.

Launch Student-Owned “Learning Wallets”

The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is already proving that students don’t need traditional GPAs or credit hours to get into college—they’re using alternative records based on competency and skills.

Move from Diplomas to Portraits of a Graduate

In Kentucky and South Carolina’s Portrait of a Graduate frameworks shift from traditional diplomas to competency-based models that prioritize real-world skills.

Make Learning Achievements Badgeable Stackable and Transcripts an Open-Source Tool

Grand Valley State University (MI) is developing a pilot for a digital wallet across K12 and higher ed in Grand Rapids, and the state of North Dakota has launched a digital wallet system where badges and credentials travel with students, making learning more fluid and borderless.

The Shift is Happening

While traditional models persist, these H3-aligned approaches are already being built, tested, and iterated upon. The challenge is no longer primarily in imagining what the future of education could look like. It’s in spreading innovation to more places which entails:

• More schools or microschools designing, building, and testing H3 models in their local contexts (inside existing schools, in alternative education schools, in new schools). This includes partnering with tech, community organizations, and technical assistance providers to make new learning experiences easier to design and manage, both for young people and adults.
• Modularizing the pieces that work, integrating them together, and enabling them to be put together in different ways in different contexts, testing them in different contexts, and sharing what works. 
• Networking innovators to problem-solve together, borrow from each other,  as well as spread awareness of the new design pieces so that everyone everywhere isn’t reinventing the wheel.
• Funding for all this work.

… Unevenly

It also remains true that the most comprehensively innovative of the models – The Growing Place, One Stone, The Flight School, Red Bridge, for example – all too often are private. Founders often intentionally choose to make them private because of freedom from constraints. This independence allows them to experiment boldly with pedagogy, assessment, and governance in ways that traditional public systems don’t permit. However, this also means that the students who might benefit most from these innovations are often the least likely to access them. Check out the 5 moves teachers, leaders, policymakers, legislators, and funders need to make to overcome constraints to make future-ready learning accessible for all at the link below.