5 Systemic Moves for Making Next Horizon (H3) a More Widespread Reality

Through this blog series, we have outlined a bold vision for H3 education and highlighted the many innovators working to bring it to life. Here’s what we learned in the process.

  1. Shifting Power

  2. Rewiring the System

  3. Redefining Accountability

  4. Redefining Adult Roles

  5. Scaling What Works

AI design of H3 IDEA
Image of personalized learning enabled by AI.

Over 24 blog posts, we have sketched a bold vision of H3 education in action, and highlighted the many innovators working to bring it to life. These pioneers are building new models that prioritize human development, relationships, and real-world relevance as most valuable. They are forging partnerships,  designing and adopting transformative technologies, developing new assessment methods, and more – that enable these priorities to become the lived experiences for the young people in their schools and serve the needs of families and communities that see this vision and its values as important. In short, they are creating new value networks that enable them to deliver learning experiences that better address the demands of today’s economy, society, and learners.

Growing an H3 Value Network

In disruption theory (Clayton Christensen’s work), traditional organizations typically don’t see the value in new models and their value networks but a growing set of consumers do. Disrupters and their new value networks lead to the displacement of older ones just as Apple displaced Digital Equipment Corporation and Apple’s iPhone and App Store created an entire value network of apps that displaced the flip phone universe and changed how consumers navigate their daily lives.

How do we enable H3 learning to become a more widespread reality? There are those who want to give up on public education, but we reject that idea. We also feel the urgency of leaving millions of children’s futures at the mercy of an outdated mass educational system that could take decades to be disrupted. There is a moral imperative now—especially if the coming impact of AI on the economy is as great as many believe—to help all young people have access to learning experiences that help them thrive in life, careers, and civic engagement in a rapidly changing world. That means finding paths to change within the13,500 school districts and charter networks that still shape the learning experiences of most students. Incubate Learning’s Transformation Stack and Getting Smart’s Innovation Framework are two ways of conceptualizing the work to be done.

Getting Smart’s Innovation Framework and The Transformation Stack from Incubate Learning

To grow the appeal of the new value network, schools and other organizations designing, building, and testing new models, products, and services at each layer need to build enabling, interoperable, and interconnected technology together, and align services together—so that schools can deliver a better experience for their ‘customers’: students and families, educators and leaders, and the community. This requires patient funding and, as importantly, the removal of barriers. 

Innovators designing new models within the traditional (H1) educational value network encounter repeated, frequent, fundamental barriers to change. Even as they develop new models and value networks, the traditional system often actively resists them. Many of the pieces in this series have tried to tell these stories of how change is blocked by outdated system designs, policies, funding models, accountability structures, and  higher ed admission requirements that limit innovation.

Finding the Outliers: When Public Systems Lead Innovation

Despite systemic resistance, there are outlier public systems actively exploring how transformation is possible within the constraints of traditional public education, some by transforming the entire system and others by creating spaces for innovation within the system. They are all working to design and improve, and thereby prove that meaningful change can happen now rather than waiting for full-scale disruption. We’ve profiled some of them in this series.

Scaling Systemic Change: Key Recommendations

Drawing from the insights in this series and particularly from the outliers, we have identified actionable strategies for systemic transformation. Below, we outline recommendations to shift power, redesign accountability, and enable a value network to grow for the next horizon of public education. Making these systemic moves will entail dismantling the old system’s policies, regulations, and compliance mindsets and measures–most of which are at the local level.

1. Shifting Power: From Standardization to Local Innovation

Education policy remains highly centralized, limiting schools’ ability to innovate. Yet the most promising H3 transformations are emerging from local initiatives, pilot programs, and educator-led experimentation.

Policy Shift

Policy must shift from control to permission, allowing districts to pilot and intentionally design integrated competency-based learning, interdisciplinary approaches, and real-world assessment models.

Portrait of a Graduate

The Portrait of a Graduate framework gives districts a way to redefine success beyond test scores while maintaining credibility with parents, colleges, and employers.

Innovation Incentives

Incentives must reward innovation, funding schools that pilot learner-centered, transdisciplinary models instead of reinforcing outdated compliance measures.

Key Takeaway

Policy should enable local experimentation, not dictate uniform solutions.

2. Rewiring the System: From Schools to Learning Ecosystems

The industrial model assumes learning happens inside school buildings, in discrete subjects, on fixed timelines. H3 envisions something different: learning ecosystems that connect schools, workplaces, and digital spaces.

Community Ecosystem

Schools must function as part of broader communities, integrating apprenticeships, internships, and project-based learning.

Competency-Based Education

Competency-based education must replace seat-time requirements, allowing students to progress based on mastery, not arbitrary timelines.

Technology Embedded

Technology should amplify human learning, ensuring AI and automation support personalized, inquiry-driven learning.

Key Takeaway

Learning shouldn’t be confined to classrooms—it should happen anywhere, anytime.

3. Redefining Accountability: Measuring What Matters

What gets measured gets prioritized—yet today’s system still rewards test-taking over real-world problem-solving. H3 must redefine assessment and accountability to reflect the skills students actually need.

Measuring What Matters

Shift from standardized tests to durable skills/competencies as assessed via performance-based learning. This can be done using portfolios, capstones, and applied problem-solving as key measures of success.

Alternative Assessment

Funders must invest in alternative assessment models, ensuring schools can measure deeper learning without risking funding or accreditation.

Align with Workforce

Success metrics should align with workforce and societal needs, valuing AI fluency, creative problem-solving, and systems thinking over rote knowledge.

Key Takeaway

If we don’t change how we define success, the system will keep reinforcing outdated priorities.

4. Redefining Adult Roles: Expanding the Work of Learning

The success of H3 isn’t just about changing how students learn—it’s about redefining how all adults support learning. This shift requires rethinking roles not only for teachers but also for administrators, support staff, families, and community mentors.

Empowering Educators as Designers and Facilitators

Traditional teaching models restrict educators to content delivery, limiting their ability to mentor, guide, and co-design learning experiences. To enable H3, educators need new roles, structures, and permissions to innovate.

Learning Designers

Teachers must shift from content deliverers to learning designers, facilitating interdisciplinary, inquiry-driven learning and student agency.

Professional Learning

Professional learning must reflect H3, preparing educators to facilitate real-world projects rather than deliver pre-set curricula.

Team Teaching

Team-based teaching should replace isolated classrooms, enabling educators and community experts to co-mentor students across disciplines.

Expanding the Role of Support Staff

Systemic transformation isn’t possible without redefining the role of support staff—an often overlooked part of school infrastructure. Schools must move away from narrow administrative roles and instead empower support staff to act as learning navigators, family connectors, and instructional facilitators.

Cohort-Based

Connecting principals as a collaborative community is a powerful lever for change, enabling school leaders to share strategies, support experimentation, and drive systemic transformation together.

Invite Everyone

Transformation efforts need to include the essential contributions of support staff like paraprofessionals, custodians, bus drivers, and office administrators, and provide them opportunities for alignment with the change vision, as well as upskilling.

Leadership as a Model for Systemic Change

The way leaders approach change shapes the system itself. H3 requires leadership that is decentralized, iterative, and focused on creating conditions for innovation, rather than enforcing top-down mandates.

Decentralization

The way leaders approach change shapes the system itself. H3 requires leadership that is decentralized, iterative, and focused on creating conditions for innovation, rather than enforcing top-down mandates.

Dynamism

Decision-making must be distributed, ensuring that schools function as dynamic learning organizations rather than rigid bureaucracies.

Experimentation

Leaders must embrace uncertainty, recognizing that experimentation and iteration are necessary for meaningful change.

Key Takeaway

Adults shouldn’t just be trained differently—they should be empowered to work differently.

5. Scaling What Works: The Case for New School Models

The existing system wasn’t built for H3—and while transformation within public schools is critical, new school models and model components must emerge to accelerate change.

New Schools

New school creation must be a priority, as existing schools face bureaucratic inertia that slows transformation (Why We Need More New Schools).

New Policies

New policies that support new pathways for educator credentialing and targeted recruitment and access need to be developed, so that community members can support young people’s learning in a wide variety of ways. (Our Past, Present, and Future).

New Networks

New and existing H3 models need to be supported into growing into networks of innovation and these models/components need to be sheltered from existing constraints.

Key Takeaway

H3 won’t scale by transforming schools alone—new models must be built alongside transformation efforts within existing systems and new models need to be supported in scaling into networks.

Next Page

Horizon Three Series Archive

Explore the Horizon Three Archive to discover learning innovations and trends from across the country.