Re Education : Issue #30 - The Velcro Approach to Scaling in Education
Combining strengths for effective scaling
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Quote of the Month
Going to scale is the Holy Grail of donor-funded international education development projects. Scale is seen as both a requisite for and the logical culmination of any “successful” donor or government-funded education program.
Mary Burns
In Conversation with Brad Olsen….
This month’s feature is all about scaling in education ; what it means, why so many global educators talk about it, and whether in the current resource-stretched world it’s still a relevant topic ?
Brad Olsen is a Senior Fellow in the Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution. In his career he’s been a high school teacher and principal, and a Professor of Education in California and Colombia. Master of the arresting metaphor and quoter of Joni Mitchell, he has wide-ranging interests in global education grounded in real classroom experience.
Brad has written extensively on scaling and systems. He leads the the Millions Learning team and, together with Brookings colleagues, has produced a number of very readable blogs and research reports on this topic. One of the best, written with colleagues Molly Curtiss Wyss and Maya Elliot, gives a sense of his approach : “Enacting deep change in education. Scaling and systems transformation are engaged—should they marry?”
Our conversation is too long for the newsletter email format, so it’s best to read in the app on Substack. Nonetheless, to whet appetites, the first part of the conversation is provided below with a link to the rest. Click the button below to go straight to the full aticle.
Brad is an engaging speaker and a deep thinker who has some profound things to say about one of the key issues in our sector : do read the full conversation.
If you’re working in global education are you worrying about scaling ? If you’re not worrying about scaling, should you be ?
Andy Brock, April 2026
The Historical Context
Andy
Let’s kick off with a bit of history. I’m interested in the history of the development of education systems – how they “scaled”. If you could go back to, say, the history of education in Scotland, how did that go from being a handful of schools in the 15th Century to a school in every parish within 100 years? What were the processes and drivers that enabled that? So, let’s talk a bit about how you see the history of education development in those broad terms.
Brad
Sure, that’s a good place to start. I feel like there are four histories that come together when you think about contemporary scaling.
For the first history—education as a formal practice—we go all the way back to China 1,000 years ago. Before that, education was a process of generations informally passing down their knowledge, skills and culture. So, education became formalised in China and in other countries, but it took another significant change near the end of the 19th century, with the emergence of scientific efficiency, industrialization, and what’s now called the factory model of schooling.
That’s one’s history. I think a second history is when people began to think of education as a system. That started, arguably, in the 20th century. First in the early 1800s and then again in the 1950s two kinds of systems thinkers emerged : those who thought about systems in terms of mechanical processes and those who thought about systems in terms of biological processes, two schools of thought if you will. Sadi Carnot described the steam engine as a system of interdependent parts in 1824 and Biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy outlined in 1950 a theory of systems : think of the human immune system or a social group.
Then, I think there’s a third history to consider – which comes from the private sector. The private sector has been strategising about what it means to penetrate a new marketplace with a product for quite a while – in fact, that’s where the term scaling first originated.
Some people think that it’s solely about technology, but it’s not. It started with how do you get a new product, say a toothpaste, into the marketplace? And we can learn a fair amount from the private sector history of scaling, but there are also limits because scaling a product in a marketplace is so incredibly different from what it means to scale a public sector program.
The fourth history is when we get to scaling. In the private sector, scaling is about bringing a product to market and getting everyone to use or want it. But it’s in the public or social sector that most of education scaling is located. I’m simplifying a lot here, but I think that it really started in the 1960s when a widespread belief began to take hold that government wasn’t really capable of improving social life all by itself. People began asking who else - NGOs, social institutions, community groups - who else could work to improve education, whether as a system or a set of institutions?
I believe that’s when the modern conception of scaling first began, but for several decades scaling was understood as short-term project implementation. And in fact, I think that we still suffer from a short-term project mentality when we talk about scaling — thinking there are discrete projects that can be carefully and successfully dropped into a system and will automatically stick.
This logic holds that scaling is a technical process and implementation is relatively simple and straightforward. If the education reform or innovation model is good, it’s going to take hold. In the United States, that flawed view of improving education started in the 1960s with the post-Sputnik math and science curricular reforms. And it was a disaster.
Electrifying Failure
As a result, in the 70s and 80s, a group of researchers including Milbrey McLaughlin, Paul Berman, and Seymour Sarason asked, how can a well-meaning implementation attempt with a high-quality innovation fail so badly? Along with Michael Fullan and Alan Pomfret, they were the first to propose that implementation itself is a science—an area of study of its own. They pointed out that if you’re not taking into account the culture of the place and the systematic components of the context—in this case the schools and surrounding policy environment, the place will reject the new innovation the way a body sometimes rejects an organ transplant
And so, I think in some ways that created at least the beginning of focusing on how a great innovation needs to be actually developed for scaling, and need to be scaled carefully. John List’s thoughtful book The Voltage Effect comes to mind here. He says not only was the era of short-term project-minded implementation something that often failed, and therefore sacrificed opportunities for potentially good systems change, but it also turned decision-makers cynical and untrusting of program developers, because they had spent their reputational capital supporting innovations that did not take hold at scale.
So, all four histories when combined lead us to this notion that the idea of introducing or embedding a new program, an idea, a practice, or an initiative in education for sustained use is not simple. It’s complex. And complex is very different from complicated. It requires political buy-in. It requires multi-stakeholder coalitions that are durable but flexible. It requires a sort of cultural and socio-political component. It often requires a decade or more.
There needs to be capacity. There needs to be thoughtful, multipartite engagement in what it means to prepare the new practice or innovation, prepare the place, and then make sure that the two sides come together in productive ways so that there’s sustained impact—and that it doesn’t fall apart as soon as the funding ends or get washed out by the larger system.
The Velcro Partnership
Andy
Let me pick up a couple of points there, zoning down onto the development sector and education development in particular.
I think you’re absolutely right that people seeing scaling as being about projects, but, there’s there seems to be a dilemma - that is that aid agencies want to fund things that are durable and sustainable, and I think that desire has morphed into seeing scaling as the equivalent of sustainability.
I like the distinction you made in your recent paper between scaling and systems transformation. I think these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, confusing the whole discussion about what’s being attempted.
But, if one accepts all the things you’ve just said about how complex it is to actually scale something within an education system, aren’t you really saying that it can’t be done by outsiders ? Outsiders are not there long enough, their funding isn’t there long enough, they aren’t there long enough, and so on.
And yet, many of the systems we’re discussing are actually relatively dysfunctional. That’s why donors and philanthropies are there supporting. So, can you actually scale change if the driver is from outside of the system ?
Brad
Yes, I think you can. I mean, I don’t believe that there is no role for outsiders. And the metaphor that I like to use here is Velcro (hook and loop fasteners often in clothing). A trusting partnership, you know, is like Velcro: one side of the piece of Velcro is useless without the other side. And even if you have both sides, they don’t do their job until they’re hooked together. But when they are, it’s working as it’s supposed to.
So, I absolutely think there’s a value for outside actors, organizations and agencies. I think that when you talk about aid agencies, you have to remember that they themselves are beholden to incentives, boards, and funders. And those incentive systems often privilege quick wins, short-term thinking — i.e. what can we get out of it? Sometimes funding groups themselves have in-built limitations. Even with the best ones (for example, I think GPE is working hard to get it right), find it’s hard to do, no matter how good your intentions are. Funding and donor organizations are big, slow systems with lots of moving parts, and they have to answer to others.
And yes, the weaker, less functional LMIC governments may be more likely to say yes to any innovation or effort that has money attached to it, so they may end up approving projects that don’t fit the needs of their location, which is completely understandable.
But, if you’ve got a relatively strong, relatively coherent, functional government that can work as an equal partner with aid agencies, then I think you’ve got the potential for that healthy Velcro partnership. Those governments are close to the people; they’ve got a commitment to secure local ownership of reforms and hopefully the capacity to do so; they’ve got an understanding of the local contours. Those are all incredibly important ingredients for success.
Case Study : The Lively Minds Scaling Experience – a Change of Mind
Despite successfully supporting the Government of Ghana to integrate and scale a parenting programme into its pre-primary system, Lively Minds have taken the courageous step of re-thinking their scale approach as they begin work in Ethiopia and the Gambia – why ? (read more…)
The actors and institutions inside a country also have weaknesses and blind spots, think equity considerations for example. The external actors and groups have different weaknesses and blind spots too, for example development fads. So, each side’s got some strengths and weaknesses and that’s why I really love this idea of creating a kind of healthy partnership—that’s the Velcro. I definitely think it’s viable.
Click the link below to read the whole conversation, including :
Scaling and Systems - Marriage or Serial Monogamy ?
Scaling - A Clash of Agendas
Scaling Impact not Innovation
Scaling as Franchising
Scaling as Autocatalysis
Scaling Education Systems
Scaling Lessons
News
ODA cuts are not only the most severe on record (23% down says Essi Lindstedt) but there is a further drop of 6% to come (Dan Banik). The steepest cuts of all are in the UK where, though aid spending has fallen on refugees (slightly), humanitarian aid is up, but at the expense of aid to Africa (CGD). In a crassly political move, the spending on British Overseas Territories is doubling (Euan Ritchie). Susannah Birkwood provides a good overall summary here and an article in The Economist, Good or Bad ODA, desperately spins some positives while acknowledging the damage done to the UK’s reputation.
In education, ECW is a “winner” with £80m committed over the next 4 years.
All this is dressed up as “unavoidable” and partly blamed on the poor support from the British public – a claim challenged by a wide range of sources (see Issue #21). There seems to be increasing irritation too with the FCDO framing of this change as being : from donor to investor ; grants to expertise ; services to systems ; and international to local. This is a wholly inaccurate presentation of FCDO’s development history.
“The Global Education Monitoring Report 2026 : Access and Equity, Countdown to 2030” was launched in late March. Hamish Higginson and David Archer both welcome it, but also point to gaps.
Development
Lant Pritchett has a new Substack with a four-part series on poverty called “Low Bar Poverty Lines - Ending the Reign of Error”. The first challenges the “low bar” of the $-a-day poverty line ; the second focuses on the MDGs and particularly the failure to have a goal for national development ; the third looks at chickens, “chicken feed” and the distraction caused by RCTs ; the fourth, and final part proposes different, more economically sound, methods of measuring poverty gaps in ways that actually help countries.
Because one of his main interests is education, school / education examples feature prominently (though, warning, it is economics heavy). The pieces are all excellent – he’s a very cogent, witty and occasionally acerbic, writer – and his insights into both the economics of development and politics are really worth contemplation. Sample quote below :
The MDGs broke down national development into discrete targets and specific “projects” with their own accountabilities, ignoring overall national development on which all these parts depended.
Have sympathy for Chinese youth – they are a potential canary in the world’s…solar array (?). Youth unemployment hit a record high of 19% in August 2025 (even though this is likely a significant underestimate). This excellent article by Barclay Bram of the Asia Society Policy Institute looks at the issue in depth including the impact of AI on entry level jobs. Public sector jobs are, once again, the most desirable - and pretty hard to get :
With 1.2 million applications for just shy of 8,000 positions (at the China National Nuclear Corporation) …the odds were roughly 150 to 1.
Alex Evans has a blog called Make the World Safe Again about the future direction of aid. It’s worth reading, though, for me, it has some jarring notes. In its pragmatic suggestions of “riding the rapids” and “safety”, it feels like a country turning inwards, driven by fear, unsure of itself.
Don’t miss Peter Evans’s very funny and self-deprecating piece on how to get your project approved by a Minister, including a starring role for the “Sofa of Destiny” !
AI Spy
Hasan Rizwan has a great (if overlong) article on an issue that resonates with last month’s feature on ed tech – and speaks to the need for educators to drive ed tech not vice versa. He’s says that builders of apps / products are so excited about how fast apps and products can now be built that they aren’t seeing the truck hurtling down the road to hit them – trust. This quote sums it up :
Building is comfortable. It’s what they’re good at. It’s measurable progress. Trust-building is uncomfortable. It requires talking to people. It requires empathy for problems that aren’t technical. It requires creating experiences, not just functionality.
Aza Raskin of Your Undivided Attention podcast, and also the inventor of the infinite scroll function, discusses the recent successful court case against Meta – found liable for not putting in place protections against social media “addiction” for young people. Just 20 minutes long this podcast is a window on what it takes to defeat these Goliath-like social media companies.
On the same topic, in an article provocatively entitled “How Evil is Mark Zuckerberg ?” Ian Leslie also looks at this case, but puts it in a wider perspective by reviewing a just published book “Careless People” by ex-Facebook staffer Sara Wynn-Williams (tldr : good, but major flaws). He’s more sympathetic to Zuckerberg than Raskin, but has less direct experience than the latter.
Is it only a matter of time before the great polymath and summariser of education research papers, books and films - Dave Evans - is replaced by AI ? Jacobus Cilliers just published an AI generated summary of every paper presented at the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) 2026 Conference in Oxford. There’s a whole section on Education. Expect more in this vein after every conference.
Tandem, an ed tech organisation promoting early childhood development through responsible use of AI, are developing AI generated stories to teach kids about…AI. If you’re a parent they’re looking for real world feedback. It’s a 5-minute exercise. See here.
Voices from the front
The Commonwealth Education Trust published a sobering piece about a Rohinga refugee called Imran Mohammed. He has spent 35 years in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar. This is resilience personified, combined with the promise and dignity that education provides. He’s now a Director and teacher.
The Big Issue – the magazine produced for homeless people in the UK - has no less than three pieces in this month’s issue about education. There’s Ariana Mouyiaris on the importance of play, even in war zones. Then Isabelle Macae on how the story of “The Boy who Harnessed the Wind” has been made into a musical and finally Flutra Gorana of War Child on how millions of children are at risk of the escalating violence in the middle east.
Voices from the rear
(Gray and Published Research)
I wasn’t at CIES in San Francisco this year, but the conference seems to have had some “definite ambivalence” (a good oxymoron) about it. Attendees reported a mix of optimism and grief ; excitement about AI and serious concerns ; frustration that FLN “is sucking air from the room” but a recognition that, for FLN (and the whole “what works” question), it’s not now about evidence, it’s about implementation ; and finally, excitement for local agency tinged with concerns for where the real power lies. (Needless to say, flavour of the times the “middle tier” got plenty of mentions). Deborah Greebon and Mainak Roy both highlighted their disconcerting feelings. Other good summaries include : Samantha Ross, Victoria Egbetayo and Euan Wilmshurst.
My old organisation, Cambridge Education, has been holding a series of Legacy Seminars as they prepare to close their doors. You can find all the sessions here - it’s worth dipping in ; 45 years of high quality learning on display.
There was a lovely little nugget from Rwanda in the Systems Coherence session (perhaps better labelled Systems (In)Coherence ?). The government identified it’s own money to put into teacher training (big win !) but, then said, for budgetary reasons, the money needed to be spent within one month. Maybe doable….but, the kicker was the money could only be used for training, not to buy the materials the teachers were to be trained in - because that came from a different department ! Not a unique story by any means, but symptomatic of the real challenges of “systems coherence”.
In a provocative piece, Cornelius Chipoma challenges what he sees as the almost exclusive focus on primary education and deliberate underinvestment in secondary in Africa in “The Slow-walking of Secondary Education in Africa”.
Harry Patrinos and George Psacharopolous have published a new paper on a familiar subject - the private returns to education - only this time it’s not about well-evidenced correlation, but about that much trickier link, causality. In their paper “Causal returns to education” they find causal returns to schooling average 10% a year globally and say :
Schooling yields substantial earnings gains, especially when policies expand participation among constrained groups.
Podcasts, Films and Books
BBC “The Moral Maze” had an episode recently on “What is Education For ?” As they don’t define education at the beginning, it’s a bit of a messy ramble, but some good attempts to wrestle with the importance of intrinsic / extrinsic motivations.
The Kindergarten Makeover part of a BBC podcast called “People Fixing the World” features the work of Lively Minds in Ghana focusing on parents helping their children - and themselves. Good listen. It also includes, in a poem at the end, this lovely phrase - “the rehydration of hope”.
Series 3 Episode 71 of Let’s Talk Education Africa was on “Teacher Motivation for Lasting Education Reform”. Worth listening to for the very articulate and clear-thinking guest Modern Karema of STiR Uganda.
“The Highest Exam : How the Gaokao Shapes China” Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li. Really insightful study which will feature in a future issue.
I have long been a lover of Shakespeare and an admirer of Maggie O’Farrell’s brilliant, and very moving, novel “Hamnet” about the death of Shakespeare’s son (in which the playwright is named just once). So, it was with some trepidation that I watched the recent film of the book, worried that it might not match the hype from all the accolades and awards it has garnered.
My fears were misplaced : it is, simply, a very tender and terribly moving film. The thought of losing a child is viscerally painful to most parents. That deepest fear is illustrated here in a way that is both raw and understated. Afterwards, I could not help thinking about the 40,000+ parents of children killed in Gaza...
And finally….
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