The Ed Spec - Symptom or Problem?
Prakash Nair, RA, REFP

I read through Bruce Jilk’s ideas on the Ed Spec and, like everything he writes, it triggered some thoughts of my own. First, Bruce says he has worked for 30 years without having to do an Ed Spec. - or maybe he did one but who’s counting? I wonder how many architects and school planners doing work today can make that claim. I suspect very few. The reason? Not necessarily that these people are in love with the Ed Spec (ok, so some of them are), but because an Ed Spec or some close cousin of the Ed Spec is not just expected, but required in most jurisdictions.

I have worked with several large school districts where the Ed Spec is written into law—examples include the States of New Jersey and Florida and New York City—which is kind of like a state, only bigger. In fact, Florida requires that all schools start out as prototypes! Districts must jump through hoops and prove they need a custom design to get away from prototypes. The State even makes monetary awards and gives out gold seals to school districts that build the cheapest schools. Goodbye brick, hello stucco! That takes the Ed Spec problem one step farther because, now, it is not just the requirements that are standardized, but the design itself. Sorry architect, that little informal seating area you “borrowed” from the grossing factor—no good. Not prototypical.

Are we surprised? We shouldn’t be. Isn’t pretty much everything in education about standardization anyway? The stuff that Bruce is talking about—personalization of learning—is something progressive educators like to talk about but the reality is that 99 out of 100 schools are still pretty much where they were fifty years ago. The Ed Spec is a symptom not the problem. When Bruce’s ideas become mainstream, the Ed Spec will disappear because it will no longer be needed.

We know that the progressive clients asking Bruce to design their schools will take their cue from him but most individual architects and planners do not have any say in this area —particularly when it happens to be the law. This is the reason that organizations like CEFPI and AIA can take a stand. They can become advocates for the position that to start out with a document like the Ed Spec makes the whole design process a sham. It is like putting a straitjacket on creativity—small wonder that architects have to be content to win awards for pediments and curved corridors!

The Government of Western Australia is one of the first large-scale organizations to allow its new schools to grow organically out of a community consultation process. I’m lucky to be working on a school in Perth that began with just a rudimentary two-page generic goals document. The school evolved at various levels simultaneously. That means, the architects took their cues from consultations with stakeholders who in turn drew inspiration from what the architects were sketching. At the same time, the educational folks were designing their curricular approach (I said approach not content) tied to what the rest of the team was coming up with.

The principal and staff of the school will be picked not only for their qualifications, but also for their openness to new ways of thinking. The school when done will be unique not just because it started (and will probably end) without an Ed Spec, but because such a document was never really needed as a basis for developing it. This is almost identical to another school I worked on in Tasmania, where, again, the Department of Education threw away the school-planning manual and came to the table with a blank slate. Both these schools will look completely different than their traditional counterparts but neither will cost any more money—sorry guys if I took away your last piece of cover.

Today, the Ed Spec is nothing more than the memorialization of good practice—or so the rationale goes. “Why reinvent the wheel? One science lab is as good as another and one classroom in neighborhood A does not have to be a different shape or size than the other in neighborhood B.” That line of thinking is fine as long as we are content to build the same school over and over again. Bruce, if they are going to do that anyway, you have to at least allow them to play with the brick patterns (except in Florida where they can trowel designs into the stucco). Of course, the best practice rationale runs into trouble if you ask the question, “But do you need classrooms and science labs in the first place?” When was the last time anybody asked these kinds of fundamental questions about schools?

I wrote a whole piece entitled, “But Are They Learning?” I have to repeat here that if a school client started with that question, the Ed Spec would go quietly away—and who would mourn its passing?
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Bruce Jilk:

Prakash,
Some comments on your response to “Cleaning House”:

1) I am pleased that my essay caused you to think. I do not propose that others do as I suggest so much as that they actually think about what they do.

2) We need to stop finding excuses for not doing better. Too bad the Ed Spec is the rule (law or policy) It isn’t in Minnesota. There was a time it wasn’t the rule and there will be a time in the future when it won’t be the rule again.

3) As you point out the money excuse is used to justify all kinds of mediocrity (not just facilities). But this thinking is total B.S. The real measure society wants is “How much Learning per Dollar.” When we “clean house” this is the kind of dirt the politicians and the education bureaucracy have hidden.

4) Standardization. Robert Reich covers this nicely in his new book “I’ll Be Short.”

5) 99 out of 100. Do not underestimate the change that is going on in education. Your framing of the issue is misleading. It’s not like in 5 years it will be 98 out of 100. This suggests an either/or situation. As I told you in Amsterdam there is strong growth in school choice. More and more parents are home schooling or sending their kids to charter schools, private schools, parochial schools, virtual schools, schools for profit, etc. The traditional public school may well remain as they are today, but they will have a smaller market share.

6) Both CEFPI and AIA perform in the interest of their members, not in the interest of those affected by what their members do. In the case of schools, these associations, through their members, use kids to justify there being.

7) Straightjacket on creativity. I agree, but why does it go on some damn easy?

8) I am glad you refer to your “But Are They Learning?” piece at the end. Everything you mention before is about the adult or institutional perspective. Focusing on the leaner is where the conversation needs to go! And be advised, to make this shift also means to shift from a modernist world of iron clad logic and rational to one characterized more by feelings and compassion—or from using kids (as so many planners and architects do) to caring about kids (as so many teachers do).

The future is what we make it. The problem is not if we should make it my way or your way. The problem is we are not engaged in making it any way. It is just too easy for the lazy to follow the rules.
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Prakash Nair:
Bruce,

I like all your responses but would like to go one more round on your point five as follows:

Agree that the number 99 out of 100 may be misleading. While there are real studies out there which show that only one in 100 schools is learner centered, your point is well taken. As alternatives begin to proliferate, the traditional school’s proportionate share of the overall education piece will continue to shrink.

You will recall the Committed Sardines analogy I like to point to (http://www.thecommittedsardine.net) There is no question that a new way of thinking is taking shape - in the world of education in general—and gathering influence to the point where it is certain to quickly attain critical mass. That can happen when just 5% - 10% of this world changes. The new examples produced as a result of innovations will be dramatically different and successful by a whole new set of measures. And there will, literally, be no choice but for the larger establishment to try and move as a whole in a different direction. What will happen is that as the larger institutions struggle to redefine themselves, smaller offshoots (call them charters or whatever) will make them less relevant if not obsolete.

I agree that it will NOT be a linear move from the old paradigm to the new. While the change need not be revolutionary, though it might well be, I have no doubt that what we call innovative today will be pretty commonplace less than five years from now. That means, 60%-70% of all new places for learning will be guided by personalized learning in student-centered environments. The future will have little use for the standardized Ed Specs as they exist today. At least that is what I believe.

Bruce Jilk (in response to Prakash): Bravo!

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