Resources - Redesigning High School

Interested in learning more?

Here are just a handful of articles that inform and spur our thinking.

Letter Grades Deserve an ‘F’

“We are asked to assess our students precisely (many grading programs track scores to the hundredths place) and with the appearance of objectivity while using an inherently subjective process. Teachers are then asked to present their c alculations on official documents and defend those numbers at parent-teacher conferences as if they are objective measures of student learning.”

Why Elite-College Admissions Need an Overhaul

“By gauging the achievement of secondary-school students according to current admissions standards, many of the top schools seem to have taken the quirkiness out of the student body—and the rebelliousness of intellect, style, and thought that is often critical to doing something important in fields other than law or medicine.”

A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry

“In any event, advocates argue, the current education system is not working. Too many students leave high school ill prepared for college and careers, even though traditional grading systems label many top performers. Last year, only 61 percent of students who took the ACT high school achievement test were deemed college-ready in English. In math, only 41 percent were deemed college-ready.”

The Pursuit of Deeper Learning

“A growing body of research suggests that few of the questions on even the most rigorous traditional, multiple-choice tests assess higher-level skills such as analyzing, explaining, or synthesizing. But the tests do tend to drive instruction, largely because the stakes are so high.”

Much Ado About Mastery-Based Transcripts

“Concerns about mastery-based transcripts are largely unfounded. And more often than not, they are based on assumptions that are easily dispelled. In general, admissions offices will happily discuss any concerns that school leaders, guidance counselors, and prospective applicants and their families may have. If you have questions, pick up the phone. Or read this interview with Nancy Davis Griffin, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs at the University of Southern Maine—she will tell you a lot of what you need to know.”

Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions

“Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions marks the first time in history that a broad coalition of college admissions offices have joined forces to collectively encourage high school students to focus on meaningful ethical and intellectual engagement. The report includes concrete recommendations to reshape the college admissions process and promote greater ethical engagement among aspiring students, reduce excessive achievement pressure, and level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students. It is the first step in a two-year campaign that seeks to substantially reshape the existing college admissions process.”

Best, Brightest — and Saddest?

“The suicides are tragic, but they are at the pointy head of the pyramid, the tippy top,” she said. “Beneath them is a larger number of kids who are really struggling and beneath them is an even larger number of kids who feel an amount of stress and pressure that they shouldn’t be made to and that’s untenable.”

Today’s Exhausted Superkids

“Sleep deprivation is just a part of the craziness, but it’s a perfect shorthand for childhoods bereft of spontaneity, stripped of real play and haunted by the ‘pressure of perfection.’”

Why Are Teens So Stressed and What Can Break the Cycle?

“What’s fueling the rise, for all of us but especially among younger generations?… For teens with few prospects… the impact of increasing inequality and decreasing social mobility is dramatic. They are more likely to be on a path to being socially disconnected, and this leads to higher risks for lifelong health…But why would kids with many advantages, who haven’t experienced the material adversity of dangerous neighborhoods, food insecurity, or potential homelessness, experience similar issues with distress and anxiety? Inequality, both social and economic, impacts them in a different way, by heightening the competition to achieve at ever-higher levels to have the best chance to succeed in a highly unequal society. The potential risks of sliding down the ‘social ladder’ are much higher when an ever-smaller percentage at the top can gain access to social and economic success.”

Education Must Transform to Make People Ready for AI

“The AI challenge is not just about educating more AI and computer experts, although that is important. It is also about building skills that AI cannot emulate. These are essential human skills such as teamwork, leadership, listening, staying positive, dealing with people and managing crises and conflict….The employability skills gap is already large, and AI will only make it larger. A McKinsey survey found that 40 percent of employers cited lack of skills to explain entry-level vacancies in their companies. Sixty per cent said that even graduates were not ready for the world of work.”

Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: What The Future Of Work Will Mean For Jobs, Skills, And Wages

“Workers of the future will spend more time on activities that machines are less capable of, such as managing people, applying expertise, and communicating with others. They will spend less time on predictable physical activities and on collecting and processing data, where machines already exceed human performance. The skills and capabilities required will also shift, requiring more social and emotional skills and more advanced cognitive capabilities, such as logical reasoning and creativity.”

The Real Story of Automation Beginning with One Simple Chart

“This is a story of technological unemployment that is crystal clear, and yet people are still arguing about it like it’s something that may or may not happen in the future. It’s actually a very similar situation to climate change, where the effects are right in our faces, but it’s still considered a debate. Automation is real, folks. Companies are actively investing in automation because it means they can produce more at a lower cost. That’s good for business. Wages, salaries, and benefits are all just overhead that can be eliminated by use of machines.”

Technology will change the meaning of intelligence

“You don’t need me to tell you that a new wave of technological expansion is upon us. Experts agree that this period of rapid change will require a different set of knowledge, skills, competencies, abilities, and characteristics. But those same experts can’t seem to agree on what they’ll be. There is little, if any, consensus about exactly what our students, employees, entrepreneurs, and leaders will need to know and be able to do in the future. The result is an inevitable uncertainty that makes planning for education a particular challenge.”

The Mastery Transcript Consortium

“The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is a growing network of public and private schools organized around the development of an alternative model of crediting and transcript design. Together MTC schools are creating a digital, high school transcript that is mastery-based and that reflects the unique skills, strengths, and interests of each learner. Over the next decade, the MTC aims to reinvent how students prepare for college, career, and life.”

The Korda Institute for Teaching

“We equip educators with teaching methods to change their classroom and provide administrators with strategies to change their schools. We work in collaboration with K-12 schools worldwide to center student learning on individual growth, skills, knowledge and community impact.”

Challenge Success

“At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores, and performance, leaving little time for kids to develop the necessary skills to become resilient, ethical, and motivated learners. We partner with schools, families, and communities to embrace a broad definition of success and to implement research-based strategies that promote student well-being and engagement with learning. After all, success is measured over the course of a lifetime, not at the end of a semester.”

LIFT

“Employers and colleges look for self-aware candidates who know how to think independently, set their own course, design their own learning, and take responsibility for their own growth. Project-based learning can be the ideal way to teach these future ready skills. Unfortunately, project-based learning initiatives often fall short because they require painstaking preparation from teachers with no efficient way to personalize the projects or measure learning outcomes.”

Next Generation Learning Challenge MyWays Report

“MyWays asks the four big questions challenging public education in the United States today and distills oceans of research to bring you trustworthy answers and actionable ideas.”

Best, Brightest — and Saddest?

“The suicides are tragic, but they are at the pointy head of the pyramid, the tippy top,” she said. “Beneath them is a larger number of kids who are really struggling and beneath them is an even larger number of kids who feel an amount of stress and pressure that they shouldn’t be made to and that’s untenable.”

Today’s Exhausted Superkids

“Sleep deprivation is just a part of the craziness, but it’s a perfect shorthand for childhoods bereft of spontaneity, stripped of real play and haunted by the ‘pressure of perfection.’”

Why Are Teens So Stressed and What Can Break the Cycle?

“What’s fueling the rise, for all of us but especially among younger generations?… For teens with few prospects… the impact of increasing inequality and decreasing social mobility is dramatic. They are more likely to be on a path to being socially disconnected, and this leads to higher risks for lifelong health…But why would kids with many advantages, who haven’t experienced the material adversity of dangerous neighborhoods, food insecurity, or potential homelessness, experience similar issues with distress and anxiety? Inequality, both social and economic, impacts them in a different way, by heightening the competition to achieve at ever-higher levels to have the best chance to succeed in a highly unequal society. The potential risks of sliding down the ‘social ladder’ are much higher when an ever-smaller percentage at the top can gain access to social and economic success.”

Letter Grades Deserve an ‘F’

“We are asked to assess our students precisely (many grading programs track scores to the hundredths place) and with the appearance of objectivity while using an inherently subjective process. Teachers are then asked to present their c alculations on official documents and defend those numbers at parent-teacher conferences as if they are objective measures of student learning.”

Why Elite-College Admissions Need an Overhaul

“By gauging the achievement of secondary-school students according to current admissions standards, many of the top schools seem to have taken the quirkiness out of the student body—and the rebelliousness of intellect, style, and thought that is often critical to doing something important in fields other than law or medicine.”

A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry

“In any event, advocates argue, the current education system is not working. Too many students leave high school ill prepared for college and careers, even though traditional grading systems label many top performers. Last year, only 61 percent of students who took the ACT high school achievement test were deemed college-ready in English. In math, only 41 percent were deemed college-ready.”

The Pursuit of Deeper Learning

“A growing body of research suggests that few of the questions on even the most rigorous traditional, multiple-choice tests assess higher-level skills such as analyzing, explaining, or synthesizing. But the tests do tend to drive instruction, largely because the stakes are so high.”

Much Ado About Mastery-Based Transcripts

“Concerns about mastery-based transcripts are largely unfounded. And more often than not, they are based on assumptions that are easily dispelled. In general, admissions offices will happily discuss any concerns that school leaders, guidance counselors, and prospective applicants and their families may have. If you have questions, pick up the phone. Or read this interview with Nancy Davis Griffin, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs at the University of Southern Maine—she will tell you a lot of what you need to know.”

Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions

“Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions marks the first time in history that a broad coalition of college admissions offices have joined forces to collectively encourage high school students to focus on meaningful ethical and intellectual engagement. The report includes concrete recommendations to reshape the college admissions process and promote greater ethical engagement among aspiring students, reduce excessive achievement pressure, and level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students. It is the first step in a two-year campaign that seeks to substantially reshape the existing college admissions process.”

Education Must Transform to Make People Ready for AI

“The AI challenge is not just about educating more AI and computer experts, although that is important. It is also about building skills that AI cannot emulate. These are essential human skills such as teamwork, leadership, listening, staying positive, dealing with people and managing crises and conflict….The employability skills gap is already large, and AI will only make it larger. A McKinsey survey found that 40 percent of employers cited lack of skills to explain entry-level vacancies in their companies. Sixty per cent said that even graduates were not ready for the world of work.”

Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: What The Future Of Work Will Mean For Jobs, Skills, And Wages

“Workers of the future will spend more time on activities that machines are less capable of, such as managing people, applying expertise, and communicating with others. They will spend less time on predictable physical activities and on collecting and processing data, where machines already exceed human performance. The skills and capabilities required will also shift, requiring more social and emotional skills and more advanced cognitive capabilities, such as logical reasoning and creativity.”

The Real Story of Automation Beginning with One Simple Chart

“This is a story of technological unemployment that is crystal clear, and yet people are still arguing about it like it’s something that may or may not happen in the future. It’s actually a very similar situation to climate change, where the effects are right in our faces, but it’s still considered a debate. Automation is real, folks. Companies are actively investing in automation because it means they can produce more at a lower cost. That’s good for business. Wages, salaries, and benefits are all just overhead that can be eliminated by use of machines.”

Technology will change the meaning of intelligence

“You don’t need me to tell you that a new wave of technological expansion is upon us. Experts agree that this period of rapid change will require a different set of knowledge, skills, competencies, abilities, and characteristics. But those same experts can’t seem to agree on what they’ll be. There is little, if any, consensus about exactly what our students, employees, entrepreneurs, and leaders will need to know and be able to do in the future. The result is an inevitable uncertainty that makes planning for education a particular challenge.”

The Mastery Transcript Consortium

“The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is a growing network of public and private schools organized around the development of an alternative model of crediting and transcript design. Together MTC schools are creating a digital, high school transcript that is mastery-based and that reflects the unique skills, strengths, and interests of each learner. Over the next decade, the MTC aims to reinvent how students prepare for college, career, and life.”

Wildfire Education

“We equip educators with teaching methods to change their classroom and provide administrators with strategies to change their schools. We work in collaboration with K-12 schools worldwide to center student learning on individual growth, skills, knowledge and community impact.”

Challenge Success

“At Challenge Success, we believe that our society has become too focused on grades, test scores, and performance, leaving little time for kids to develop the necessary skills to become resilient, ethical, and motivated learners. We partner with schools, families, and communities to embrace a broad definition of success and to implement research-based strategies that promote student well-being and engagement with learning. After all, success is measured over the course of a lifetime, not at the end of a semester.”

LIFT

“Employers and colleges look for self-aware candidates who know how to think independently, set their own course, design their own learning, and take responsibility for their own growth. Project-based learning can be the ideal way to teach these future ready skills. Unfortunately, project-based learning initiatives often fall short because they require painstaking preparation from teachers with no efficient way to personalize the projects or measure learning outcomes.”

Next Generation Learning Challenge MyWays Report

“MyWays asks the four big questions challenging public education in the United States today and distills oceans of research to bring you trustworthy answers and actionable ideas.”

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