Diego Arambula: Education, Transformation, & Design

Diego Arambula, Vice President for Educational Transformation at the Carnegie Foundation, shares how his upbringing in Fresno and his parents’ commitment to community improvement shaped his mission to transform education so that both students and teachers feel engaged, supported, and prepared for real-world challenges. He critiques the outdated architecture of schools—especially the reliance on the Carnegie Unit—and calls for a systemic overhaul rooted in new goals, learning experiences, and signals that move beyond time-based measures. Arambula emphasizes the urgency and possibility of this “punctuated equilibrium” moment in education, advocating for collaborative, research-driven innovation that can scale and sustain meaningful change, ultimately fulfilling the promise of public education for all students.