Education Week - October 12, 2016 - 23

Building more robust, successful systems of education is the most pressing challenge of our time." W PAUL REVILLE is a professor of practice of policy and administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he founded and leads the Education Redesign Lab. He is a former secretary of education for Massachusetts. Getty dearth of leadership is not only a lost opportunity in the presidential campaign, but also a threat to our education system's future. Those leaders who are involved in education reform today often pursue strategies that bypass the existing system with the belief that the only viable pathway to change is through starting over completely. While charters and outside-in organizations have generated some successful results, it is unlikely that the United States is going to abandon its current education system. And, it appears that for the foreseeable future, the overwhelming majority of U.S. students will learn in that system. Because of this, improvements must start from within. Building more robust, successful systems of education is the most pressing challenge of our time. Transforming education will require input from government officials, particularly governors and mayors; persuasive economic arguments from corporate CEOs; and collaborative efforts from state, district, and school leaders. These leaders should see opposition to existing reforms as an opportunity to conceive, promote, and implement a new vision for public education. They should take By John Urschel value of student-generated solutions. But the best way to start integrating youth activism into classrooms is the simplest: an honest conversation about what students experience as unfair in school or society and open conversations about possible solutions. Above all, our job as educators is to help our students see and remove obstacles to their freedom. We must encourage them to play an active role in shaping their education and their future. ■ LYN MIKEL BROWN is a professor of education and women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. She is the author of Powered by Girl: A Field Guide for Supporting Youth Activists (Beacon Press, 2016). " Participating in girl-led activism helps to create a school climate where gender diversity is visible and valued." hen I was a kid, I hated math. I thought it was boring and a waste of time. I hated memorizing rules that didn't seem to connect to anything in real life, and I couldn't stand doing hundreds of exercises. The feeling was mutual; my math teachers were not particularly fond of me. At home, my mother and I would spend hours doing puzzles and competing to see who could solve them first. If I won, I would get a dollar toward my allowance. I loved puzzles, not just because they were how I made my money, but because they were fun and challenging. I could feel myself improving. Very quickly, my mother had to change the rules of the game because I was becoming quite the little tycoon! I had no idea that what I was doing with my mother was actually math. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that mathematics is not just memorizing formulas in a classroom, but is actually more closely related to what I was doing with my mom as a kid. Math gives us the tools to solve the world's puzzles. As a doctoral student in mathematics at MIT, I feel the same rush and joy when I'm working on a hard proof or problem as I did back in my mother's kitchen as a kid. It doesn't even feel like work. As with football (a sport I play professionally), it fires my competitive instincts-only in math, the competition comes from math problems that many have tried to solve and failed. Unlike a game, there is nothing unnecessary about it. The work I'm doing relates to everything from artificial intelligence to dealing with massive amounts of data. One of the most challenging things we face is getting students excited about math and science. Building a strong foundation in math and science is critical to help set students up for success in the classroom, in college, and beyond. Math education isn't just about solving problems in the classroom; it's an exercise in training to help students solve the problems they will face in life. To show kids that math is rooted in real life-and that it can be fun-I've recently partnered with the technology company Texas Instruments to explore the "STEM behind sports" in a new program. The program consists of a series of activities that allow students to explore the science, technology, engineering, and math behind some of their favorite sports. In one activity about football, students must use math and science to investigate the path of a field-goal kick in order to win the game. I want students to see that math extends far past the confines of the classroom and into everyday life. I also want them to appreciate that Getty " The Winning Equation in Math Education what's best from successful schools of all kinds-and from other countries' education systems-to formulate that vision and drive implementation with the same vigor and determination that characterized past reform leaders' efforts. This new vision will also need to move beyond the key strategies of the recent era, finally abandoning the 20th-century factory model of education, to envision a system built for 21st-century realities. Education must to take into account the whole lives of children from birth through some level of their postsecondary education, with more customization, personalization, and differentiation-trends that are also catching fire in the private sector. Leaders need to focus on creating the full range of personalized supports and opportunities necessary for all children to achieve the levels of success now typically reserved only for the affluent few. This requires leveling the playing field, with equal access to social capital and out-of-school learning opportunities to ensure every child is successful at each stage of the educational journey. Without this strong, united leadership for change, a collective, articulated vision, and a sense of urgency for realizing that vision, the nation will continue to produce mediocre education results. This, in turn, will create dire consequences for our economy and society. Most critically, we will fail the next generation of students. Who will stand up? ■ math is cool. In fact, the older I've gotten, the more I've found that when people want to talk about what I'm doing, they don't want to talk about football. They want to talk about math. Even my teammates think it's interesting. Math isn't just about calculations or memorizing formulas. Math is everywhere we look. It's in the science behind a perfect football spiral, the velocity of a game-winning three-point shot in basketball. It's in the ratio of ingredients you measure when you're cooking. It's even in how you budget to save for your first car. When I was a kid, I didn't realize that math was training my brain to solve these types of problems. Every day, we make hundreds of decisions that are informed by our quantitative judgment. Most of the time, we don't even realize it. When you're packing a lot of things into a small bag, you have to think geometrically. When you're planning a schedule or dividing your time, you're thinking quantitatively. When you're " I want students to see that math extends far past the confines of the classroom and into everyday life." trying to decide between two different options, you're thinking analytically. As a kid, I had no idea that I would become a mathematician. But in some sense, everybody has to become a mathematician. We all face problems that require mathematical concepts. The better we can solve them, the better off we'll be. ■ JOHN URSCHEL is a published mathematician and an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in applied mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. EDUCATION WEEK | October 12, 2016 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary | 23 http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary

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