Aurora Institute Issues Call to Action for Federal Policymakers in New Report – Federal Policy Priorities: Charting a New Path for America’s Learners

Today, the Aurora Institute’s Center for Policy published Aurora Institute’s Federal Policy Priorities: Charting a New Path for America’s Learners. This document highlights key issues and provides direct guidance and recommendations for policymakers to improve and advance student-centered learning. Now, more than ever, is the time to rethink the purpose of education and redesign learning ecosystems so that each child has robust opportunities and pathways to a thriving future. 

It is critically important for our country to reimagine education and focus on investing in our future, not our past. In response to our inequitable K-12 education system, many states and districts have taken proactive steps to move in new and improved directions to more equitably serve learners. But far more work must be done. The federal government should support the transformation from an education system that produces inequitable outcomes by ranking and sorting our kids to one that supports a “learner promise” for each and every student to achieve success.

Policymakers at the federal level are uniquely positioned to drive improvement by seeding grants and programs that will pave the way and spur new next generation learning designs at the local and state levels, enabling new designs for teaching and learning, and shifting to learning ecosystems that adapt better to accelerating changes happening in regions, states, and globally.

In the Federal Policy Priorities, the Aurora Institute is calling on federal policymakers to advance student-centered learning policies and transform education systems to: 

• Create Learning Ecosystems Across K-12, Higher Education, CTE, and the Workforce
• Modernize the Educator Workforce
• Diversify the Educator Workforce
• Bridge the Digital Divide
• Support COVID-19 Learning Recovery
• Advance Educational Equity
• Redesign Assessments
• Rethink Accountability

Download and share Aurora Institute’s Federal Policy Priorities: Charting a New Path for America’s Learners.

Learn more from these Aurora Institute resources: 

• Innovation Zones: Policy Flexibility to Reimagine and Modernize K-12 Education Post-COVID-19
• Education Policy Issues for the COVID-19 Era: Policy Actions and Responses to Leverage the Moment for Future Readiness
• A Promise for Equitable Futures: Enabling Systems Change to Scale Educational and Economic Mobility Pathways
• How Systems of Assessments Aligned with Competency-Based Education Can Support Equity