Arizona’s work to rethink teaching and learning spans nearly two decades. State policies and programs have been increasingly oriented toward ensuring that students are developing the skills, mindsets and experiences they need to navigate a rapidly changing labor market. As such, schools and districts across the state are actively piloting new models that reimage instructional time, school structures and student career pathways.
But even with a strong legislative foundation in place, improvement efforts have been slow to launch because educators and school leaders assume that explicit permission from the state is required or that certain practices are not allowed.
Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA) and the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy consistently heard the same questions: What is allowed under current policy? Where does flexibility exist? What do we need to do to get started?
These questions are not unique to Arizona. It’s a common refrain across states and districts nationwide working toward systems transformation. As a longtime partner in Arizona and a national leader in systems transformation, KnowledgeWorks had encountered, and helped to answer, these same questions in states like Montana, Kentucky, South Carolina and North Dakota, through the development of innovation guides and policy primers.
In Arizona, many schools and districts were taking advantage of available policy flexibilities, leading to meaningful innovation and improved student outcomes, and there was a growing desire to celebrate and elevate what was already working. This convergence of persistent questions, proven approaches and local innovation created the right moment for action and “Permission Granted” was born.
Permission Granted
Arizona had the essential conditions for education innovation in place: a supportive policy framework, real-world insights from practitioners and a shared vision for learner-centered education from their decades of work. The next step was to ensure that educators and leaders understood what policy allowed for and to offer practical guidance to support broader adoption.
Permission Granted aims to make better use of existing flexibilities and to build a culture where leaders could learn from one another and build on what was working. “Permission Granted” also focused on shifting mindsets — from seeing constraints to seeing possibilities. The resources aimed to remind educators and leaders that they didn’t need to wait for permission to act. Instead, encouraging them to create more relevant, student‑centered learning experiences now using the flexibilities they have.
Permission Granted includes two parts — a policy primer and an innovation guide. Together, the two documents, created in partnership with KnowledgeWorks, clarify what’s possible within Arizona’s policy landscape and show what that looks like in practice, giving leaders and educators the confidence and the tools to act.
The resources, designed to make policy more transparent, actionable and usable, are now helping educators and system leaders in Arizona bridge the gap between what is possible under existing policy and what is happening in classrooms and schools.
The Policy Primer clarifies where flexibility exists and the Innovation Guide builds on that by showing real examples of how schools and districts across Arizona are already using that flexibility to create more relevant, student-centered learning experiences.
Too often, policy flexibilities exist but aren’t fully understood or applied. These tools change that, transforming policy into a catalyst for change by making those flexibilities visible, usable and actionable.
Arizona Innovation Guide
This resource demystifies the policy environment, highlighting the flexibilities that exist and ways leaders can leverage them. It provides clear direction on how to navigate the Arizona policy landscape, so innovation feels both possible and supported. The guide highlights how school systems in Arizona are leveraging flexibilities to improve student outcomes.
Arizona Policy Primer
A hands-on tool for designing, testing and scaling innovative learning models. The primer provides relevant policy details and step-by-step guidance to support schools and districts interested in leveraging policy flexibilities to support innovative student learning.
Fueling future innovation: looking ahead to what’s next
Arizona now has both the momentum and the tools to move from pockets of innovation to lasting, system‑level change. Over the next several years, Permission Granted, including the Innovation Guide and Policy Primer, will support efforts to redesign the school day for deeper learning, expand access to early college and career-connected opportunities, integrate technology in more meaningful ways and create learning pathways that reflect students’ interests and goals.
CFA and the Arizona Institute for Education and the Economy will continue to work alongside schools and educational partners to bring these tools to life through hands-on implementation support. By clarifying what is already possible and showing what it looks like in practice, Permission Granted gives leaders the confidence to act, strengthens connections between education, work, and civic life, and builds shared momentum around a vision of learning that better serves every Arizona student.
