Our public education system has its roots in a model pioneered by Horace Mann in the mid-19th century. At the time, many children had never attended school, and most cities lacked state funding for education. While today it’s sometimes described as a “factory model”, Mann believed quality education should be accessible to all students, regardless of background. Today, standardization may be seen as a problem by modern perspectives, but it was the US’s first step towards universal education.

Many of our current systems are remnants of creative solutions to problems of the past, and they’re due for a redesign. Our aging electrical grid, for example, was designed to transmit power across long distances, and struggles to handle distributed energy like rooftop solar panels. And the notoriously complex healthcare system is a great example of what happens when you keep upgrading parts of the system without rethinking the whole thing.

Changing these systems from the ground up is expensive and controversial, but so is holding onto the ones that no longer fit.