Before break, I attended the College Night for junior parents hosted by our College Counseling Office. After 29 years in schools, I know quite a bit about the college process, but Marshall is fortunate to have a true expert in Katie Voller-Berdan. Given her knowledge of trends and tendencies, I learn something new every time she presents.

On Monday, Katie provided a calendar of upcoming college fairs and took a few minutes to introduce a consortium of schools called Colleges that Change Lives. Her description of the schools in this consortium had me thinking about Marshall, and the very different conversations I have about our school. With our past parents and alumni, for instance, I am forever hearing stories about changed lives. Unfortunately, I rarely have the same conversation with applicants or with people who have never visited an independent school.

Just last week, I had an impromptu conversation about Marshall while ordering a coffee. A father I have met several times suggested to me that I had a difficult job, running a school that costs money. I asked him whether he had ever visited Marshall and he said no. He saw no reason. His eighth grade son was earning straight A's and had a 100% average in math; further, he achieved that 100% without ever having to complete a single assignment at home. Nothing was broken.

After some more conversation, I walked away wondering why our society doesn't expect more from schools. Specifically, why we don't have higher expectations for the classroom experience itself? A student who joins us in 4th grade will spend more than 10,000 hours with mentors and classmates. For sake of comparison, according to Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hours is the amount of practice time necessary to become "a phenom." It stands to reason, therefore, that what you do during those 10,000 hours has the potential to be life changing. Wouldn't you want your child to be a phenomenal learner? The "nothing broken" perspective misses this point entirely.

As one of the wealthiest nations in history, we should expect that all schools seek to change lives. We should expect that our children will be engaged every day, that they will be raised to solve our future problems. If we do not expect or even demand these things, I worry about our country.

I recently returned from an international trip where I was inspired by education at every turn. I visited several countries including Colombia, a nation that is pinning its future on education. I first travelled to Bogotá in 1999. Back then, I visited a school with no glass in the windows, where students went to school in three hours shifts. But this trip was entirely different. Education is now a shared priority. This trip, I met with government officials determined to chart a new course for its citizens by investing in schools, by bringing full-day education to rural classrooms, and by increasing access to technical colleges. I also visited independent schools with LEED Gold facilities, where juniors and seniors are actively engaged in project learning attempting to solve the country's most pressing issues, including environmental sustainability.

Education is the engine of progress, and the momentum I witnessed on my recent trip provides me with great hope for the people of Colombia. Investing in a generation of learners and giving children the tools to tackle real-world issues is a smart way to raise a generation of creative thinkers and problem solvers. I fear that our country has entered into a period of complacency, that we lack urgency and have forgotten just how important it is to prioritize education. We fixate on the "value proposition" and wonder whether investing in our own children will pay immediate dividends in the form of a college scholarship or starting salary. We choose colleges based solely on cost, while our undergraduates struggle to find purpose in institutions that are forced to slash programs or increase class size to compete in this value proposition arms race. Have we entirely lost focus on the common goal of education and on the shared responsibility to fully prepare our children for the future? If so, we will undoubtedly begin to lose ground to countries that prioritize education. "Not broken" is an odd and worrisome standard; Marshall takes pride in its commitment to changing lives.