One challenge that should be addressed in the next few years is helping educators, administrators and those who support them to quickly tap sources of expertise. Currently most people leverage their professional networks to locate the person or information they want. With the number of reform efforts, foundations, for example, express frustration at not knowing who is currently funding or planning to fund specific areas, so they can best determine their grantmaking strategies. At the district or charter management organization level, schools that are successful in certain areas should share their experience and strategies so other similar schools do not reinvent the wheel.
If all these entities belonged to one large corporation, say USAEducation, in the interest of minimizing redundancy and therefore costs, USAEducation executives would mandate building of processes and tools to ensure that expertise is shared throughout the corporation, not recreated for every similar issue that pops up per school, district, state, or foundation.
Unfortunately, our education system is not designed in such a way so that some entity, even the U.S. Department of Education, feels accountable for being cost-effective across the sector. Perhaps transformational change across the education sector will occur when an organization finally assumes that level of responsibility.
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