To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

—Anatole France

Volumes have been written on education and school reform. So what do we offer that is fresh and perhaps useful? Simply put, a clear and powerful conception of a mission-driven approach to schooling and a practical strategy for realizing that mission. Although many people have written about mission, few have described how mission should be honored by informing schooling and its structure. Using mission to inform schooling and its structures is what we set out to do here.

What is true of school mission? Regardless of the particulars, schooling should enable learners to achieve worthy intellectual accomplishments, as reflected in (1) their ability to transfer their learning with understanding to worthy tasks and (2) their mature habits of mind. What, then, must be true of genuine reform? That we find and root out the myriad ways in which mission is ignored or overlooked in day-to-day teaching, and that we derive curriculum, assessment, job descriptions, and policies “backward” from what the mission requires. Without a constant focus on teaching that is meant to culminate in meaning and transfer, schooling will likely remain mired in timeless, unexamined habits and rituals, and limited by incoherent practices and structures.

Throughout Schooling by Design, we use an architectural analogy: if “schooling” is an existing building, how should we think about its renovation? We envision a (re-)building resting upon six pillars:

• A clear and constant focus on the long-term mission of all schooling: enabling learners to achieve worthy intellectual accomplishment, as reflected in their ability to transfer their learning with understanding to worthy tasks and in their habits of mind.
• A curriculum and assessment framework that honors the overall mission as well as the explicit long-term goals of academic programs, to ensure that content coverage is no longer the de facto approach to lesson planning and instruction.
• A set of explicit principles of learning and instructional design, based on research and the wisdom of the profession, to which all decisions about pedagogy and planning are referred.
• Structures, policies, job descriptions, practices, and use of resources consistent with mission and learning principles.
• An overall strategy of reform centered on the constant exploration of the gap between the explicit vision of reform versus the current reality of schooling; in other words, a feedback and adjustment system that is ongoing, timely, and robust enough to enable all teachers and students to change course en route, as needed, to achieve the desired results.
• A set of tactics linked to the strategy and a straightforward process of planning for orchestrating the key work of schooling and school reform “backward” from the mission and the desired results.

The book offers an explanation of these elements, the rationale for them, and practical tools and processes for making such renovation focused and feasible. In short, the book is about getting beyond mere intentions, endless complaints, and naive dreams. We provide a plan of action that is driven not by vague values or random criticisms but by what any legitimate school mission statement implies for the practice and structure of schooling. We also include a plan for overcoming longstanding bad habits.

The challenge is not to invent some ideal school that is unmoored from reality (as many reforms have implied) or to presume that the current core functions of school are adequate to the task (they aren't), but rather to build exemplary schooling “backward” from its long-term goal of making students thoughtful, productive, and accomplished at worthy tasks. We offer new ideas, yes; but more important, the book is built upon a commonsense method for clarifying local goals and what they require of us, and for rooting out the blind spots and habits that run counter to those goals.

The logic is simple: if X is our mission, then what follows for curriculum, teaching, and school organization? We refer to such engineering from the mission as “schooling by design.”

The point of education can be captured in a single phrase: worthy accomplishment, achieved by causing thoughtful and effective understanding that enables transfer. Any education, regardless of content or philosophy, should help learners, right from the start, to “come to understanding” in two senses: (1) to enable them to constantly make meaning from their schoolwork and (2) to equip them to apply their learning to new situations not only in school but also beyond it—that is, to transfer. Both goals are worked on now, in the present, not in some distant future after students have first learned all possible “stuff worth knowing.” When such understanding is the aim, the habits of mind we most value will be fostered. Thus, schooling should be judged by what students have genuinely accomplished, not whether they have become good at “school.” The point of school is to learn in school how to make sense of learnings in order to lead better lives out of school; to learn now to apply lessons to later challenges, effectively and thoughtfully.

At the center of the book (literally and figuratively) is thus a plan for reinventing the key embodiment of schooling—the curriculum—in a way that meets school goals and undercuts our habit of thinking of “teaching” as “covering content.” To put it bluntly, the traditional curriculum and the view of teaching attached to it are dysfunctional and have been for centuries. A list of content and activities is not a plan; marching through material can never ensure habits of mind and genuine ability. Content mastery is not the ultimate goal of a school; it is a by-product of a successful education. To invoke the architectural analogy, mastering state standards is not the primary outcome of an educational renovation. The standards are like the building code that any reform blueprint has to honor, but they are not the blueprint itself. In short, schooling is random and school change becomes chaotic without a curriculum, assessment, and instructional framework derived from the mission and grounded in valid learning principles.

From the mission of achieving successful student use of learning, all other educational practices, policies, and structures must follow. This is the practical implication of the phrase backward design used throughout the book. Reform must be guided by a constant focus on the meaning of school mission and the analysis of that mission into aligned policies, structures, and practices.

Such a declaration about the importance of focusing on understanding and useful learning may perplex some readers. Of course, you might be thinking, don't all educators want students to understand what is taught and to be able to apply what they have learned in their lives? Well, yes and no. Yes, we say we value understanding and the particular habits of mind stated in our various program and mission statements, but when we look at how curricula are written, what gets assessed locally, and what happens day in and day out in classrooms, we see that the goals of thoughtfulness, meaning, and transfer get quickly lost and perpetually postponed so that the basics of “content” can first be taught by the teacher and then be tested on an easily scored paper-and-pencil assessment. As a result, genuine applications of learning (and the habits related to them) are all too frequently sacrificed.

Some of the reasons for the lack of constant focus on understanding and transfer are understandable. The textbooks we use reinforce a propensity to cover content superficially and out of context. Pressures to prepare for high-stakes tests (primarily using a selected-response format, in which content is again isolated from context of use) reinforce a local instructional focus on discrete knowledge and skills. State and federal accountability systems that define “success” narrowly (based on test results of material that can be efficiently tested using large-scale measures) seem to conspire against teaching for in-depth understanding and transfer. Despite such obvious culprits, we believe that subtler psychological and social forces of greater impact and long standing prevent us from a focus on our declared mission.

Lurking behind our book are vital but rarely asked questions: Why have well-intentioned, skilled, and hardworking educators, over the years, so often lost sight of the goal of causing understanding? Why do the majority of our students not end up understanding or becoming accomplished in the ways we hoped and often desired that they would? Why is it so easy for teachers to get sidetracked by content coverage, test prep, or engaging activities unmoored from worthier intellectual purposes? Why do so many students find school boring and unworthy of their best learning efforts, and why do we have a blind spot about their experience? Our answer, in brief: we argue that successful reform depends on each educator and staff person breaking a long-standing array of habits and attitudes that for centuries have held schooling back from entering a new era.

Our critique is structural, not personal. Many teachers, acting in good faith, have been led to believe incorrectly that their job is to march through content and to test for low-level knowledge and discrete skills (though that is not even what most state standards expect). This misunderstanding is not only the result of centuries of institutional habits and mental models of “teaching” and “testing,” but also the inevitable effect of relying on typical curricula and textbooks.

A Flexible and Realistic Process

In addition to an understanding-oriented mission to guide school renovation, we need a realistic plan that presumes humility and the need to constantly adjust both individual teaching and schooling based on feedback and other results. We must ensure that there are constant inquiries into what is working and what isn't, leading to timely and effective alteration of practice. As it stands now, educators have few mechanisms for obtaining needed feedback and for making systemic adjustments once schooling is under way. We lack both troubleshooting guides and needed ongoing reviews of current performance against goals.

The reform process must therefore involve an ongoing three-step cycle:

• An increasingly clear and powerful vision of where we want to end up, based on our mission and agreed-upon learning principles.
• A constant and unflinching assessment of where we stand at present against the mission.
• Timely adjustments based on regular analysis of the gap between vision and reality, between goals and results.

When these conditions are met, both inertia and change for change's sake are overcome. The gap between a tangible and desirable result versus the current reality focuses our work to close the gap. The more we analyze the gap, the more we clarify the vision. The more we clarify the vision, the more it seems desirable and feasible. The more feasible it seems, the more we are unsatisfied with current results, and so on. In our view, educators in all positions must view this kind of work as being at the heart of their job.

In sum, though literally thousands of books address the subjects of school leadership and educational reform, we propose a more modest but highly focused approach. We ask readers to think through with us, in a backward-design way, what a commitment to learning for understanding and the long-term goals of mission require of schooling. If the aim is to make the classroom, the school, and the organization more understanding focused and true to the mission, which actions and plans will most likely get us there? What are the mission-critical tasks at which teachers, building leaders, and district staff must succeed in order to make the classroom, the school, and the system understanding based and mission focused?

A Preview of Schooling by Design

The book is divided into two parts. Part I (Chapters 1 through 7) sets forth a vision of schooling and its implications for curriculum and staff roles. Part II (Chapters 8 through 12) proposes a plan for achieving such schooling—by design. In fact, the book is organized around the logic of backward design; that is, given a clear and robust mission and guiding principles of learning, the particulars of schooling—curriculum, assessment, instruction, roles of staff, policies, structures, use of resources—are derived from the results desired. Figure A provides a graphic representation of the components we address.

Figure A. Schooling by Design—Key Elements

In Chapter 1 we begin with an exploration of the primacy of educational mission and its influence on all aspects of schooling. We argue that all the many missions reflect a common goal: developing understanding and transfer ability in every subject and developing the key habits of mind that signify a mature and effective adult. Chapter 2 characterizes the nature of a curriculum for achieving the mission—by design. Chapter 3 describes the particular elements of this new curricular framework, with many examples of what is needed. Chapter 4 makes the case for adopting an explicit set of learning principles associated with the mission. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 specify general roles and particular job descriptions for teachers and academic leaders in a school or district committed to such a mission.

In Part II, chapters 8–11, we describe a practical three-stage backward-design process for reform planning, with tactics for each stage. Chapter 12 looks at the reality of school change with an emphasis on habit as the key target of change.

Additionally, many chapters conclude with Ideas for Action—specific steps that educators may take to act on the ideas presented within the chapter.

Like our book Understanding by Design, its curriculum cousin Schooling by Design does not and cannot provide a quick fix. We don't believe in foolproof leadership approaches any more than we believe in teacher-proof curricula. What we think we offer here is a plan for more thoughtful, sustained, and ultimately effective results in the necessarily hard and time-consuming work of making schools honor their promise.