Education has failed to prepare children for the world today. Despite the increased investment, impactful reforms, hardworking teachers and school leaders, countless innovations, and numerous research publications, education has failed. The most basic indicator is that education has not getting better or more equitable, even on the most basic measures. NAEP, the nation’s report card, shows no significant improvement in reading and math for primary and secondary students since the 1970s. PISA, the huge global academic assessment, shows the average scores in reading, math, and science across OECD countries, have been in decline since the inception of the assessment more than 20 years ago.

The failure is more damaging in other areas. Numerous scholars, government agencies, and international organizations have been calling for the teaching of new skills and abilities for the new century, but there is little evidence if schools have changed enough to teach the new skills. More serious, there is a tremendous skills mismatch today. We have millions of students who have graduated high school and finished college but do not have a high paying job. The situation will get worse with the rapid development in AI. In the meantime, we have businesses complaining that they cannot find the talents they need. Furthermore, when AI and technology takes away jobs, they offer great potential to create more jobs, but we don’t have the people who are able to translate the potentials into jobs.

Schools have gone through many changes in policy, curriculum, and pedagogy. Innovation or reform fatigue is not uncommon in many schools. But these changes have not changed the most important aspects of learning: what to learn and how to learn. Today, what to learn is still dictated by the prescribed curriculum. Every school has a prescribed curriculum dictated by the education system. Theoretically, the curriculum is determined by authoritative adults who are supposed to know what is important to learn for all learners. However, no matter their expertise, it is impossible for them to know for certain what will be important in the future. Thus, there is no guarantee what students learn in schools will help them survive and thrive in the future. Is it possible for education systems and/or schools to relax the curriculum and give some opportunity for students to personalize their learning so that students could possibly develop unique skills that could be important in the future?

Personalization of learning is not the same as personalized learning that allows students to control the pace or place of their learning, but the content is the same. Instead, it is to enable students to have self-determination of the learning content plus the learning process. Each student should have the autonomy to pursue learning to discover and develop their passions and strengths in their innate abilities and specific environments.

Personalization of learning is to acknowledge both neurodiversity and diversity in experiences after birth. It is the only way to truly have an inclusive education, which offers opportunities for each individual to succeed in their own ways. Moreover, personalization of learning enables students to become uniquely great in their own ways. The age of AI demands unique individuals with great talents.

We also need to teach students to find problems worth solving and develop meaningful solutions to these problems. Using one’s talents to solve problems for others is turning one’s talents into valuable contributions to others. Traditional schooling teaches students to compete, to put individuals on the bell curve, and to teach them to be selfish. We cannot continue to do that. We need to teach people that their value lies in solving problems for others. This is the core of entrepreneurship and creativity education.

Youth mental health and wellbeing have become a major problem today. While Social and Emotional Learning or SEL has become popular, the more important reason is that our students lack the opportunities for self-determination and to be engaged in purposeful learning. If students have autonomy to follow their passion and engage in meaningful actions for others, it is more likely that they would have better wellbeing and mental health.

The proposed changes are transformational. They go way beyond school improvement. They demand an overhaul of curriculum, pedagogy, classes and grades, as well as assessments. Thus, these changes cannot be made easily and imposed on all students, parents, and teachers because many may not accept these new changes.

The new changes need to start with early adopters but today early adopters with the resources often find new opportunities outside the public school. They go to private schools, homeschool, or join online programs. Possible early adopters within public schools do not have the opportunity. Since we need every school to make these transformational changes, we suggest the “school within a school” approach.

This approach allows schools to build a new paradigm school without changing the entire school. It is essentially to diversify school offerings. It is to enable willing parents, students, and teachers to operate within a new context in traditional public schools, while the school continues to offer what it has been offering. The “school within a school” gives new changes an opportunity to be experienced by early adopters without having to convince everyone. It also has the opportunity to gradually influence more people in the school and community.

These changes may give generative AI a chance to help transform education as well. Like other transformative technology, the emerging AI cannot do much in traditional classrooms despite the hype because teachers have been prepared to teach these classes. This is why billions of dollars have been spent putting technology in schools, but we are at the same time banning students’ personal well-connected devices. But personalization of learning and problem finding and solving make AI a necessary learning partner for students.

Education has lost its race against technology. We can change education in the age of AI, but the change is transformation, which can and should occur without forcing the entire system to transform.