Rethinking Student Success

Traditional school districts have always taken a narrow view of what student success really means. During most of my K-12 career, if a young learner passed a high-stakes test, then that student was judged a success. I can’t tell you how many young learners, in my career at least, were poor readers, writers, and problem-solvers, even though they passed “the test.”

Last week, The 74 online published an article written by Devin Vodicka and Katie Martin, the CEO and the chief impact officer at Learner-Centered Collaborative respectively. Vodicka and Martin write,

“As educators and researchers, we have been engaged in conversations with national education leaders on assessment and accountability for decades. We have studied what families and communities want from these systems. And we have read and re-read current and past educational policy.”

“Through it all, we believe this post-COVID, tech-accelerated world needs a pragmatic approach to accountability, one that measures conventional academic attainment and adds critical social-emotional and career skills to the mix. Most importantly, this approach must honor the unique strengths and opportunities each community faces and ensure all its voices are heard, including students, families, teachers, administrators, and business and local leaders.”

“We call this approach Accountability Plus.”

“Over the last three years, our organization, Learner-Centered Collaborative, has partnered with over 150 schools and districts across the United States to rethink what success means for their students. We help each district and its community – the school board, business leaders, families, staff and students – generate a unique vision for success and systems for tracking, celebrating and communicating what students have achieved.”

“These locally defined accountability models expand the definition of success to emphasize real-world skills like problem solving, collaboration and communication, as well as whole-child outcomes like physical, mental, and emotional well-being, while maintaining an emphasis on growth in math, reading and other academic subjects. School systems then track student progress through competency-based assessment methods like performance tasks and portfolios, no just standardized tests.”

…

“We are now creating dashboards to help educators visualize their schools’ results and brainstorm ways to improve them.”

“The key is that they are not seeing tests as the sole focus of their efforts. Instead, they are emphasizing ongoing assessment and continuous improvement based on the data collected through their expanded set of metrics. This is a model that can be adapted for any community.”

“We and our partners are not the only ones answering the call for a pragmatic approach to accountability. Action is being taken in communities across the country where there is a clear dissatisfaction with the industrial-era model of education and its legacy accountability system.”

“Getting started takes only belief in two things: that every school has the ability to listen to students and the broader community, and that it can redefine success and establish shared goals for accountability around metrics that matter.”

“In a recent letter, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona invited states to apply for funding for innovative, flexible accountability models. Conditions are ripe for educators, policymakers and stakeholders to collaboratively define what matters most and to develop holistic models that incorporated multiple measures of success. These honor and celebrate the many ways in which people are smart, rather than just ranking and sorting them based on narrow measures.”

“It is incumbent upon everyone who has a stake in the education of young people to create new accountability models that serve the unique needs of every child. Redefining success and creating meaningful accountability frameworks can ensure that all learners know themselves, thrive in their communities and actively engage in the world as their best selves.”

I like what Vodicka and Martin lay out here.

The problem is that most K-12 districts can’t and won’t do what these two learning leaders want to see happen.

Our current public school system isn’t built to “personalize” the learning experience for our young learners. It’s built to select and sort based on once-a-year tests. It’s built to expect young learners to conform to a set curriculum, calendar, and testing regimen. Our current K-12 system is unable and too many times unwilling to do anything different than what it’s done over the past 50 to 100 to 150 years.

The 2022 Census reports that there are 12,546 school districts in the United States, and the Learner-Centered Collaborative folks are working with 150? Those statistics right there probably prove my point – the traditional school system is unable and unwilling to change.

A new system of learning must be created, and smart folks like Vodicka and Martin would be smart to “cut the cord” and begin working on that new system of learning – with adult learning leaders and young learners interested in making the change.

Til tomorrow. SVB