The pandemic has created severe disruption for students, families, and educators and multiple crises for education systems. There is much talk about building back stronger, but that will not be possible unless we confront the deeper problem underneath the pandemic that is driving our education systems’ valiant, varied, and often haphazard and inept, response to it. Yes, the pandemic has amplified the pernicious ways income and race shape educational opportunity and inequality in our schools, but the bigger challenge facing public education is one of courage and imagination. It is against this backdrop that America’s education battles are now being waged—hijacked by extremists at both ends of the ideological spectrum.

Indeed, the public debate over education in America is over two radically different visions of the future. On the one hand, defenders of the dominant paradigm of public education insist that geographically defined districts with elected governing boards are the only legitimate way to deliver public education, even in the face of vastly inequitable opportunities and outcomes and the reality that there is no one best way to educate every child. They call for a return to mythical past that never was and never will be. On the other side are those insisting education systems themselves are unnecessary, even as systems across the country have delivered millions of meals to children who would go hungry without them. They are so focused on disrupting existing systems or simply going around them, they skip the hard work it takes not just to reimagine them but reinvent them.

The pandemic has shined a spotlight on how essential a public service public education in America remains, and at the same time the fragility and rigidity of our existing systems for delivering it. Yet our policy debates over public education continue to parade maximalist positions designed to score political points and not to find solutions to public problems, not to build better, more equitable, effective systems but only to defend the ones we already have.

To make progress possible, we need fearless leaders at every level and in every system—leaders willing to speak the truth and to face the future bravely. The education systems we have are not the education systems we need. Building the systems of the future will take bold public leadership.

Four years ago, the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs launched the  Education Systems Leadership and Policy Institute at the Center for Education Policy Analysis. We knew then that the need for education systems leaders would only grow. The Institute creates a rare opportunity for current and aspiring leaders engaged in education systems change to engage in inquiry and dialogue about the public and private purposes of education in a free society and the challenges of designing and leading just and effective systems to meet them. For five days, Institute participants join with experienced practitioners and renown academics to see systems as they are and imagine what they can become.

There are great risks and opportunities ahead for our nation and our schools. The pandemic and our education systems’ response to it are tragic reminders that the need for courageous leadership and reimagined systems is as urgent as ever. We need a new generation of education systems leaders to forge the way.

Are you or do you know a current or aspiring education systems leader who is ready to face the future bravely? Join us July 19-23, 2021. Partial scholarships are available for current and aspiring leaders and for current and new graduate students seeking course credit.

Learn more and apply now at www.edsystemsleadership.org