What’s the future of education? It’s a popular question right now, with answers ranging from online learning to charter schools. But Liz Coleman is focused on a more fundamental issue: what will schools teach? And what does that mean for the future of our society?

In her eye-opening talk at TED2009, Coleman shared her hopes and fears for the future of the American liberal arts education. Then the president of Bennington College, she critiqued the status quo in higher education: a university system more concerned with growing endowments than with training the next generation of public servants. Universities, she said, are not producing students equipped to address pressing global issues. She called for a radical reimagining of the liberal arts education, and shared her vision for a school system that produces engaged citizens with a strong sense of civic duty.

In 2011, Coleman set out to make this a…