Here’s What I Would Build: Education
P4.2.3: Four branches, one system. What professional governance design actually looks like.
Last week I identified four purposes public education must serve: economic competitiveness, self-governance capability, social integration, and family economic support. Those are the democratic goals - what we’ve collectively decided education should accomplish for society.
But identifying goals isn’t the same as building systems that achieve them. Anyone can write goals. The hard part is designing governance architecture that actually works.
Here’s the core problem: Education cannot be redesigned in isolation. It is structurally downstream of labor markets, family economics, healthcare, immigration, and democratic capacity. The mismatch between what education delivers, what economic reality requires, and what democratic self-governance needs is widening faster than our institutions can adapt. As long as education is treated as a standalone system, reform will fail—regardless of intent.
So this week: I’m going to show you what governance architecture looks like when all four branches do their jobs.
This is a complete blueprint demonstration of four-branch governance architecture applied to education. You’ll see this same pattern applied to other domains in future essays - fiscal policy, campaign finance, healthcare. The pattern emerges through repetition, not explanation.
Four branches. Each doing what it’s supposed to do. Legislative sets goals. The Governance Design Agency translates those goals into professional standards. Executive implements. Judicial provides accountability.
The Governance Design Agency - the fourth branch I introduced here and have referenced throughout my writing - translates broad legislative goals into specific operational standards. Professional governance architects, insulated from electoral cycles, designing systems to achieve democratically determined goals.
No abstract theory. Complete demonstration. Watch how this works.
Part 1: Legislative Branch - What Lawmakers Would Write
Here’s the policy Congress would pass:
Statement 1 - The Four Democratic Purposes
“Given that public education must simultaneously serve economic competitiveness, self-governance capability, social integration, and family economic support, and given that modern society requires fundamentally different competencies than agricultural or industrial eras, and given that two-income households are economic necessity rather than choice, education systems should ensure all participants achieve functional literacy for 2026 while providing childcare support aligned with economic realities.”
Statement 2 - Cognitive Diversity
“Given that citizens learn differently and democracy requires universal access to competencies, and given that one-size-fits-all approaches systematically exclude certain cognitive styles, education systems should accommodate multiple learning pathways while ensuring equivalent competency outcomes.”
If you’re an attorney or policy analyst, you’re noticing these goals are vague. “Functional literacy for 2026”? “Align with economic realities”? What does that actually mean legally?
I’ll address why that vagueness is necessary later in this essay. For now, just note: there’s a tension here the Governance Design Agency solves. Keep reading.
Part 2: Governance Design Agency - What Professional Design Delivers
The GDA would design a system where:
Kids learn modern competencies without parents needing to specify curriculum
Teachers are compensated professionally without heroic school board negotiations
Schedules align with work requirements without constant crisis
Multiple learning pathways exist without special accommodations
Sick kids don’t force parents to miss work
The system adapts to your child, not the other way around. You don’t need to understand the engineering.
Where the Competencies Come From
Legislative sets those four goals. The GDA does the professional analysis: what do those goals actually require in 2026?
In Essay 2, I did exactly this kind of analysis. I looked at what modern economic participation requires. What informed self-governance requires. What social integration in a diverse democracy requires. What modern family structures require.
That analysis produced 11 competencies. Digital literacy, financial literacy, civic literacy, health literacy, information literacy, statistical reasoning, AI literacy, systems thinking, adaptive learning, emotional regulation, collaboration across difference.
That’s the kind of professional work the GDA would do - but institutionalized, evidence-based, and continuously updated. Not one person’s analysis. A professional body evaluating labor market data, civic participation requirements, technological change, family economic realities.
And here’s the critical piece: competencies can evolve without new legislation.
Technology changes. The economy changes. What “functional literacy” means in 2026 isn’t what it meant in 1996 or what it will mean in 2036. The GDA can update the competency framework based on evidence - the same way the Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates based on economic conditions without Congress voting every time.
Legislative mandate stays stable: serve these four democratic purposes. Professional analysis of what that requires can adapt.
And schools can experiment within this framework. Want to try a new approach to teaching statistical literacy? Go ahead. GDA standards specify the competency outcome (can evaluate statistical claims), not the teaching method. If your experimental approach works better, that becomes evidence for GDA to incorporate. Innovation isn’t squashed - it’s systematized and spread when it works.
The design process itself is iterative and transparent. Schools provide feedback on what’s working. Citizens can comment on proposed standards. Congress can weigh in on whether designs serve the mandate. Professional educators can critique methodology. The GDA publishes everything - proposed standards, public comments, evidence reviewed, decisions made, why alternatives were rejected. Then schools implement, report back what they’re seeing, and the cycle continues. Not a black box. Continuous improvement based on evidence from the field.
Here’s how this works in practice: Schools report that a particular assessment method is creating unintended barriers for English language learners. DoE collects this feedback from multiple districts. GDA reviews the evidence, consults with language acquisition specialists, publishes a proposed modification. Public comment period. Professional review. GDA issues updated assessment standard with explanation of changes and why. Schools implement the updated version. No Congressional hearing required. No political fight. Professional iteration based on what’s actually happening in classrooms.
Now watch how professional design translates those competencies into systems that actually work.
The Deep Example: Multiple Learning Pathways
Here’s what the system delivers: accommodation for different cognitive styles without special accommodations. Sequential learners who need to build bottom-up? Supported. Pattern-seers who need framework-first? Supported. Not because teachers are heroes - because architecture is designed for both.
Here’s the system the GDA would build:
Early identification: Kids screened for cognitive style starting in early elementary - not when parents notice struggles and fight for evaluation. Professional assessment, routine, no advocacy burden.
Pathway guidance: Based on screening, students guided toward curriculum frameworks that match their processing style. Sequential learners get step-by-step building. Pattern-seers get framework-first approaches. Not “special accommodation” - just different routes to same competencies.
Curriculum design: For each subject area, GDA specifies frameworks that work for both styles. Math: some students build from arithmetic → algebra → calculus. Others start with “why do we need math?” → see patterns → learn tools. Both reach statistical literacy, financial competency, analytical reasoning. Same destination, different routes.
No IEP/504 patches required: Parents don’t need neuropsych evaluations and legal advocacy to get appropriate instruction. System designed for cognitive diversity from the start. Your kid thinks differently? Great, here’s the pathway that works for their brain.
Assessment flexibility: Measures whether you can evaluate statistical claims, identify misinformation, use AI tools productively, understand civic systems. Not whether you learned it the “right” way. Competency achievement, not pathway compliance.
This connects to why I was told I was “stupid” in school . The system only worked for one cognitive style. Professional design builds for both from the start.
The GDA would specify: curriculum must provide both sequential and framework-first pathways. Assessment must measure competency outcomes regardless of which path students took. Teacher training must equip educators to recognize different cognitive styles and guide students to their effective pathway.
This isn’t magic. Learning science exists. Cognitive diversity research exists. Professional educators know how to design for this. The GDA creates architecture that enables it systematically rather than depending on heroic individual teachers who figure it out themselves.
Brief Mentions: Other Design Areas
The same professional design approach applies to:
Schedule alignment: Designed for actual family needs, not agricultural calendar. Younger kids start earlier (aligns with wake times and parental work schedules). Older kids start later (aligns with adolescent biology and independence). Childcare explicitly provided for extended hours. System supports families in economic reality they face.
Trauma-informed teaching: Structural requirement, not optional. Bruce Perry’s research shows teachers can misread trauma responses as misbehavior - student reacts to sensory trigger, teacher sees defiance, cycle escalates. Professional training equips all teachers to recognize and de-escalate these responses rather than leaving traumatized kids to chance of getting trained versus untrained educator.
Teacher compensation: Over time, the system has demanded more from teachers - multiple pathways, trauma-informed practice, schedule flexibility, family support - with little professional support. Professional compensation matches professional expectations. Architecture based on comparable professions requiring similar training, funded through reduction in turnover costs (50% of teachers leave within five years - massive waste). Pay professionals appropriately, reduce turnover, reallocate savings.
This is structural and nationwide because teacher quality affects economic competitiveness nationally. Can’t have high-performing education in Massachusetts and failing systems in Mississippi when labor markets are national. GDA sets national minimum professional standards for compensation that apply everywhere. States implement, but baseline professional requirements are consistent.
Important distinction: While the architecture (standards and compensation baseline) is national, the operation (daily school management, hiring, curriculum adaptation) remains state and local. This respects the 10th Amendment while ensuring the structural foundation supports economic competitiveness across the country.
Teachers unions negotiate working conditions within this framework. GDA sets “teachers must be compensated as professionals requiring master’s degree plus specialized training.” Unions negotiate specific contracts with districts within those professional parameters. Separation: GDA designs architecture, unions advocate for workers, districts operate.
Each area follows the same pattern: Requirements drive design. Professional expertise translates policy goals into operational standards. Systems work without heroic effort.
The GDA publishes complete work products for every standard:
Section 1: Legislative Mandate - The four goals Congress set
Section 2: Competency Framework - Based on labor market analysis, civic participation requirements, family economic realities. Evidence and methodology published. Maps each competency to legislative goals.
Section 3: Curriculum Architecture - Multiple pathways, assessment methods, teacher training requirements
Section 4: Implementation Standards - How schools demonstrate competency delivery, how we measure against goals
These work products then get handed off to the Department of Education for implementation.
Part 3: Executive Branch - How Implementation Actually Works
Three distinct functions, clear separation:
The GDA: Designs the Standards
What multiple pathway frameworks look like
What compensation architecture achieves
What schedule configurations serve families
What trauma-informed practice requires
Evidence-based, professionally designed, insulated from electoral cycles
Federal Department of Education: Supports Implementation
Helps states meet GDA standards (technical assistance, resources)
Distributes federal funding based on GDA formulas
Collects data on what’s working
Serves as feedback mechanism: when schools identify problems with standards, DoE channels feedback to GDA
Coordinates across states (sharing what works)
State and Local: Operates Schools
Implements within GDA frameworks
Adapts to local context
Provides frontline feedback on what’s actually working
Why This Separation Matters - The Feedback Loop
Currently, schools are bound by law to perform specific actions even when they make no sense. Every implementation detail is written into law. Schools must comply or risk being sued for not following the law.
Example: No Child Left Behind mandated annual standardized testing. School has evidence that Project-Based Learning produces better outcomes for their students - kids learning more, retaining more, performing better on college-level work. But PBL doesn’t optimize for standardized test performance. Teachers forced to abandon what works and teach to the test instead, because law requires showing “adequate yearly progress” on those specific metrics. School faces sanctions if test scores drop, even if actual learning improves. Can’t adapt based on evidence. Law says these tests, this progress measure, period. Even when NCLB was proven counterproductive, it took Congress 13 years to replace it with ESSA - 13 years of schools locked into an approach everyone knew wasn’t working.
To change anything requires re-litigating entire policy through Congress. Good luck with that.
With the GDA model:
Schools implement GDA standards → Schools identify problems or better methods → DoE collects feedback from field → GDA reviews evidence → GDA updates standards → Schools implement improved version
No legislation required for iteration.
This works because GDA standards aren’t laws. They’re professional standards that can evolve based on evidence - like how the FDA updates food safety standards when we learn something new about salmonella. Congress doesn’t vote every time. Professional body updates standards within mandate.
But Wait - Why Can’t the Department of Education Just Do This?
Good question. Why do we need separate GDA? Why not just give DoE authority to create these standards?
Three problems:
Problem 1: Political Whipsaw
DoE is Executive Branch. Secretary serves at President’s pleasure. Every 4-8 years: new administration, complete policy reversal.
Common Core → No Common Core. Testing emphasis → de-emphasis. Charter expansion → traditional public focus.
Schools can’t build professional systems when rules change every election. Institutional knowledge gets destroyed and rebuilt constantly.
Problem 2: Mixed Functions
If you design standards you also enforce, you bias toward easy-to-enforce rather than best-design. Separation prevents this conflict.
Better model: NTSB investigates aviation accidents and designs safety recommendations but doesn’t enforce them - that’s FAA’s job. Separation prevents NTSB from designing easy-to-enforce rules rather than best-safety rules. Three functions, three authorities: NTSB investigates and designs, FAA enforces, airlines operate.
Problem 3: Regulatory Capture (The killer argument)
When the same body designs AND enforces standards, AND that body is controlled by political appointees serving at President’s pleasure, you get exactly what we’re seeing right now:
Betsy DeVos actively hostile to public education, favoring private/charter. Current talk of abolishing DoE entirely or installing loyalists to cripple it.
This is the classic pattern of regulatory capture. When agencies both design and enforce, they often become “orphans” of the Executive branch - captured by whoever controls the presidency, wielded as political weapons, or systematically weakened by hostile appointees. The agency becomes a tool of political power rather than professional governance.
Standards become political weapons instead of professional design. Whoever controls the presidency controls education architecture. Guaranteed capture or destruction every few years.
The GDA’s constitutional separation is a safety feature, not just a preference.
The GDA separation prevents all three:
Constitutional-level institution like Federal Reserve - professional body insulated from electoral cycles. Congress sets mandate (what goals education should serve), GDA executes professionally (how to achieve those goals).
Design separated from enforcement:
GDA designs standards (can’t be fired when administration changes)
DoE oversees implementation of standards (political leadership can be more or less vigorous, but can’t rewrite professional design)
Even if President captures DoE, they can’t tear down the architecture
Transparency plus judicial review:
GDA publishes methodology for every standard
Courts can review arbitrary changes
Can’t just rewrite things politically without evidence
Compare to Federal Reserve: Fed governors serve fixed terms crossing administrations. Treasury executes but doesn’t design monetary policy. Congress can change the Fed’s mandate (what goals monetary policy should serve), but can’t override professional decisions about how to achieve those goals (specific interest rate policy). No president can capture or dismantle the Fed just by winning election.
Result: Institutional continuity instead of whipsaw. Professional design that adapts to evidence, not electoral cycles. Architecture that survives political capture attempts.
This is also why the vagueness in legislative goals is necessary. If Congress writes “students must achieve proficiency in Python programming,” that’s locked in stone. Technology changes, Python becomes obsolete, we’re stuck with outdated mandate.
Instead: Congress writes “students should achieve functional literacy for modern economy.” GDA does professional analysis of what that requires right now. Updates as technology evolves. No legislative gridlock required to adapt.
And at any point, schools, DoE, Congress, courts, and citizens can see what those standards are, review the evidence and methodology, and provide feedback. Yes, designing and creating an education system this way is hard work. But it’s necessary work.
Implementation Reality
Here’s what this architecture doesn’t do: force implementation against all Executive resistance.
The Department of Education must take GDA standards seriously - initiate rulemaking, engage with the evidence, justify any deviations with counter-evidence. Courts can enforce those procedural requirements. But if a Secretary provides substantial evidence that a particular architecture is unworkable, they can modify or reject it.
That’s appropriate. We want professional design to heavily influence implementation, not eliminate all Executive judgment. The burden shifts: instead of GDA having to convince politicians to adopt good design, politicians have to justify why they’re ignoring professional expertise.
Compare again to the Fed: Treasury can’t just ignore the Fed’s interest rate decisions, but in extreme circumstances, Congress or the Executive could intervene with evidence. In practice, professional judgment wins because it’s based on evidence and expertise. Same principle here.
This isn’t perfect immunity from politics. It’s professional continuity that makes politicizing education much harder and more visible when it happens.
Part 4: Judicial Branch - How We Prevent Abuse
Professional bodies can be captured. Power can be abused. Five accountability mechanisms prevent this:
1. Judicial Review
Courts evaluate GDA decisions using “arbitrary and capricious” standard.
Courts evaluate:
Did GDA consider relevant factors?
Did they provide reasoned explanation?
Is there evidence supporting the decision?
Did they follow proper process?
Courts do NOT evaluate:
“Is this the choice I would have made?” (not their role)
Technical design details (defer to professional expertise)
Policy goals themselves (that’s Legislative’s job)
Example: GDA decides multiple pathways are necessary. Court reviews: Did they consider learning science? Did they explain the reasoning? Is there evidence this works? Did they follow their process?
Court does NOT decide: “I personally think sequential learning is fine, so GDA is wrong.”
2. Professional Accountability
GDA publishes methodology for every standard:
Policy goal being translated
Professional methodology used
Evidence considered
Alternatives evaluated
How success is measured
Peer review by other education professionals. Transparent, auditable process. Academic community can critique. Professional organizations can push back. Everything is public.
3. Democratic Override
Congress can write more specific policy if GDA goes too far. Can change GDA mandate (what goals education should serve). Can pass legislation overriding specific standards if necessary.
GDA is insulated from electoral cycles, not from democracy itself. If GDA makes decisions that violate democratic will, Congress retains ultimate authority.
This is how Federal Reserve works: Fed sets monetary policy independently, but Congress can change the mandate (from dual mandate to single inflation target, for example) or pass legislation if Fed’s decisions conflict with democratic priorities. Insulation protects professional decision-making, but democratic accountability remains.
4. Transparency Requirements
Every GDA standard includes complete documentation:
Goals being pursued
Evidence reviewed
Methodology applied
Trade-offs considered
Alternatives rejected and why
How we’ll measure success
No black box decision-making. Public can see reasoning, evidence, choices. Media can scrutinize. Advocates can challenge.
5. Design/Enforcement Separation
GDA designs. Federal DoE oversees implementation. Different functions, different authorities.
Can’t design standards that favor yourself when you’re not the enforcement body. Can’t capture the system by controlling one agency.
Even if President installs hostile Secretary of Education, they can make oversight more or less vigorous - but they can’t rewrite the professional architecture.
Why these five mechanisms matter together:
Any one alone isn’t enough. Judicial review without transparency is toothless. Transparency without democratic override can’t correct bad design. Professional accountability without enforcement separation allows capture.
Together, they create accountability without micromanagement. GDA gets professional autonomy to design well, but remains democratically accountable.
This Is What Governance Architecture Looks Like
Four branches, each doing what it’s supposed to do:
Legislative: Sets policy goals based on what society needs - economic competitiveness, self-governance capability, social integration, family economic support
GDA: Translates into professional operational design - analyzes what those goals require, designs systems to deliver it, updates based on evidence
Executive: Oversees implementation - GDA designs, DoE coordinates compliance and supports states, schools operate day-to-day
Judicial: Reviews process and provides accountability - five mechanisms preventing abuse while preserving professional design authority
Not abstract theory. Complete structure.
You might disagree with specific design choices I showed. Maybe you think sequential learning is fine and multiple pathways are unnecessary. Maybe you’d prioritize different trade-offs in teacher compensation. Maybe you think the GDA has too much authority or not enough.
Fine. Those are legitimate disagreements about governance architecture.
The point is: Someone should be designing this professionally.
Not cobbling together reforms every election cycle. Not depending on heroic teachers to overcome structural failures. Not letting inherited systems from the 1800s determine outcomes in 2026.
Professional governance architecture. Clear separation of functions. Democratic accountability built in.
This is what it looks like when you actually design for the requirements instead of inheriting traditions.
Next blueprint: The fiscal system. Same four-branch structure, different domain. The pattern emerges through repetition, not explanation.