Do we spend too much time re-learning?

I spent most of the day at a conference on the elongation of the transition to adulthood hosted by the American Youth Policy Forum and the Future of Children. AYPF is focused on bridging the gaps among the spheres of research, policy, and practice -- an arena close to my heart given my past work relating to translating theory into practice on the subject of improving teaching quality in Chicago Public Schools through learning from what works in professional development and rethinking how teaching is conceived as a profession.

My boss was slated to speak at one of the panels of the conference from the perspective of federal policymaking and the coordination of federal agencies around policies for at-risk/disconnected/vulnerable youth (there seems to be no asset-based term to describe this population of 4-6 million young people who have been failed by societal institutions to the degree that they are both out of school and out of work -- any ideas?). The inter-agency working group on federal programs for youth connects 12 federal agencies to coordinate policies and build a strategic plan for children's policies -- their website maps resources and strategies in a pretty cool way -- and the White House Council aims to take work like this to the next level in terms of promoting public-private partnership networks and making recommendations on federal policy changes.

Each panel of the conference today had a researcher, a practitioner, and a policymaker, and the interplay among them made for some thought-provoking commentary. Some of my takeaways:

• We don't need to create new institutions. We need to move existing institutions to go out on a limb together to change the opportunity structure for young people since upward mobility and social inclusion are what's at stake.
• The silence was deafening in response to a question on the role of businesses and the private sector, which made me glad to know that one arm of the Council's work will be around building sustainable partnerships among businesses, education and credentialing institutions, and youth-serving organizations within communities. 
• Without a shared set of consistent outcomes and a plan for sustainability, we cannot expect collective impact to take shape. Collective responsibility must yield collective accountability for high impact.
• If the systems that punish have accepted that it takes years to change [e.g.: the length of prison sentences], why have the systems that help remain tied to an instant gratification timeline?
• National service is an incredible opportunity to empower youth from all backgrounds to develop the skills to improve their own lives through education and training, while engaging with and improving institutions and local communities.

Despite all of this wisdom and knowledge-sharing, I sensed a bit of frustration around the idea of praxis. One panelist commented that if we don't change the incentive structures that drive diverse sets of institutions that support youth, we'll just perpetuate the isolated "silo-ed" efforts and still be talking about the same issues of the need for collaboration, shared language, and collective impact decades from now.

The cynical part of me is reminded here of David Tyack and Larry Cuban's Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, which reminds us that it's incredibly challenging to change institutions like school systems since even after a century of reform cycles, the basic structure of the school system has basically remained the same.

Yes, reform may be cyclical, but I wonder if some time is wasted trying to carve out a niche, trying to be unique, trying to create new organizations and enterprises rather than connecting what already exists. After all, creativity is about connecting things that already exist.

Do we spend a bit too much time relearning and repackaging existing knowledge instead of taking action on the understanding of what works? Obviously, it's not that simple, but it was a wake up call for thinking about where I envision my potential role -- spend a little less time thinking about creating new theories of change, flashy terminology, and new ways to delineate key elements for success and a little more time connecting potential change-makers and leveraging the existing knowledge and resources to take action.