Recently, I facilitated a conversation among three Yidan Prize laureates who are remarkable leaders in global education: Vicky Colbert, Dr Linda Darling-Hammond, and Shai Reshef. Our discussion ranged widely (reflecting the varied and deep experience of the participants), but some core themes emerged. If you squint a little, you can even see some broad prescriptions for education leaders: redesign education systems for the world in which we live now; simultaneously address both quality and scale; revamp educator preparation and support; and measure what truly matters.

Tackling the legacy of industrial revolution-era education — and exclusion

Linda, founding president and currently Chief Knowledge Officer of the Learning Policy Institute, offered compelling context through a historical assessment of early 20th-century efforts to standardize education. She argued that we see the legacy of that system today — with standardized curricula, narrow assessments, and structures that don’t account for the social, emotional, and cognitive diversity of learners. Her vision for change is rooted in the science of learning and development, where schools are redesigned to foster meaningful relationships, curiosity, and problem-solving skills.

Vicky, Founder and Director of Fundación Escuela Nueva, reaffirmed many of these points. Though the educational philosophy underpinning her decades of work in Colombia isn’t new — drawing on Dewey, Montessori, and Vygotsky, as well as a rich legacy of practice in many contexts — she faced challenges implementing ideas in schools serving children in rural and conflict-affected communities. She found that it worked best to start small, at the local level, using teacher collaboration and community engagement. This transformed one-room rural schools into active, participatory learning environments serving learners who were historically excluded from meaningful education.

Shai, Founder and President of University of the People, focuses his work on making higher education accessible to millions of people around the world. His model — University of the People — was designed from the ground up to be an alternative to traditional higher education, providing high-quality, accredited, tuition-free online learning for underserved students globally.

As we move away from assembly-line learning, there’s more than one way to scale sustainably

Vicky shared Escuela Nueva’s extraordinary trajectory: from a local innovation to shaping national policy in Colombia, becoming an internationally adopted model that has reached over seven million children. Teacher-to-teacher learning networks spread practices and culture, while educators enjoyed a degree of flexibility to adopt and adapt modular curricula. Success in scaling came largely from working with governments and international organizations, including the United Nations, USAID, and the government of Colombia.

By contrast, Shai’s University of the People doesn’t work with any governments across the 209 countries and territories in which it operates. More than 60,000 students are from Africa, and 40,000 are from Arab-speaking countries. It’s built to go big without bureaucratic gatekeeping. He acknowledged the risk and limitations that come with avoiding traditional government or government-adjacent systems but insisted that agility and cost-effectiveness have allowed his university to thrive where others stall. His advice to others seeking to scale new models of accessible education? "Don’t wait for permission."

Right now, as President of the California State Board of Education, Linda’s working with governors and presidents on making systems change into policy. Changing P-12 education on a systemic scale means aligning infrastructure: curriculum, assessment, educator preparation, and funding mechanisms have to work together to respond to what we now know about learning. Above all, that means top-down support for bottom-up changes. Reflecting on both Vicky and Shai’s experiences, Linda added: “The way you start and the way you ultimately get to the largest scale may be different. You have to be willing to engage in different strategies  at different junctures.”

We need to develop educators for the systems we want to build

If we are serious about changing the way schools, universities, and education systems function, we need education-preparation systems that are built for that purpose.

Linda emphasized the importance of grounding teacher education in the science of learning and in culturally responsive practices. She advocated for experiential training that mirrors the kind of learning teachers are expected to foster in their own classrooms.

Vicky complemented this idea by emphasizing the importance of teacher-to-teacher learning and communities of practice, especially in low-resource settings. She was frank in her critique of traditional faculties of education in Latin America, calling them overly theoretical and detached from the realities of classroom practice.

And we must measure what matters

We can only know how we’re doing by looking at outcomes. But what should we pay attention to? Which metrics would help us achieve those outcomes?

Vicky spoke of early efforts to measure not just literacy and numeracy, but also self-esteem, peaceful behavior, and civic engagement. These ‘soft skills’ – now known better as ‘durable skills’ — proved essential to achieving real impact, especially for children who had experienced trauma and instability. And when children’s self-esteem improved, their learning outcomes followed.

Linda pushed for measuring "learning ability" and "social responsibility" over test scores that merely reveal the ability to recognize a correct answer out of several provided. She made the case that success in life and work depends far more on the ability to collaborate, problem-solve, and apply knowledge than on standardized performance.

For Shai, it’s about real-world outcomes: employability and success at scale by being cost-effective. He pointed out that most of his students enroll not to pass tests, but to build better lives and obtain the skills to earn a viable living. Metrics, in his view, must reflect that reality.

Through different lenses, laureates see common patterns

Linda’s expertise in the diversity of the US education system, Vicky’s advocacy for moving at the speed of trust to create sustainable change for poor and rural communities, and Shai’s entrepreneurial, technology-driven approach to tearing down barriers are vastly different experiences — and must include differences of opinion.

Yet patterns emerged. All wanted to move away from seat time as a proxy for either expertise or outcomes. All had a passion for equity and access. And all had respect for the variety of individual and cultural experiences that education systems need to account for. None looked kindly on approaches to change that could be described as mechanistic, impersonal, or universal. It’s precisely the diversity of individual and collective experience that makes any learning system dynamic, and that shapes how thinkers and doers lead those systems toward inclusive excellence.

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Brent Maddin
Executive Director and Professor of Practice, Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, Arizona State University