Searching for Signs of Hope and Reinvention as Summer Sets and Schools Reopen
It’s easy to find reasons for despair given the stickiness of the status quo in an education system that isn’t working well writ large for any of the students it serves.
But as schools around the United States reopen and students return from their summer breaks, there are reasons for cheer in the news. Two stories featuring high-profile public school districts reinventing schooling have me feeling more optimistic, as the districts seem to be following some of the playbook from my book From Reopen to Reinvent. A third about districts pushing to rethink assessment to support learning that is mastery-based also brought me cheer.
Phoenix, Arizona
First there’s Phoenix Union High School District in Arizona. In The74, Beth Hawkins writes about the district’s eight-year run of reinvention.
In 2015, its then-superintendent, Chad Geston, “announced a plan to operate 25 schools by 2025, with a goal of offering distinctive options throughout the district. In addition to comprehensive high schools with their array of athletics and extracurriculars, there would be medium-sized schools with attractive career and academic focuses and small, personalized microschools to choose from.”
When COVID hit, Geston concluded they weren’t going far enough. In the spirit of Spinal Tap, he turned the volume up to 11, as he started moving beyond seat time to competency-based (or mastery-based) learning and more.
“There is still magic in large, comprehensive campuses,” says Gestson. “Lots of kids in this country go to school not for math but for theater or the chance to go to MEChA [El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, a national Mexican-American club] or the Black student union.
“The challenge was to take large schools and make them feel small.”
According to the article:
“Phoenix Union now includes four small high schools with specific themes: law enforcement and firefighting; coding and cybersecurity; the college-preparation program AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination; and a bioscience school. In the fall, Phoenix Educator Preparatory will welcome its first students.
Uniquely, the district also operates microschools, standalone programs housed in wings of existing high schools. There is one of the country’s only Montessori high schools, a microschool geared for students working toward admission to highly selective colleges and a gifted and talented academy.
The existing big high schools have been reconfigured. Metro Tech, for example, now is a career-technical education magnet offering 19 workforce training programs. South Mountain is home to distinct programs focused on media arts and design; science, technology and aerospace; and public and social services. At North High School, students work with an adviser to choose their own classes instead of following an established sequence.
Each high school also has a freshman academy, intended to accomplish several things. To help them take advantage of the district’s specialty programs, ninth-graders are exposed to a variety of career and higher ed options and given the skills to navigate an individualized path. Because they come from 13 K-8 school districts within Phoenix and dozens of public charter schools, it helps them acclimate to PXU. Once students have an idea of what interests them, they can switch schools.
When creating the menu of options, district leaders ignored the temptation to locate popular programs in the city center — a tactic used by many school systems in the name of efficiency that typically excludes the students with the fewest resources.”
The article has much more detail, but here’s the kicker. This isn’t flexibility for its own sake. The district is getting outcomes:
“So far, it seems to be working. Last fall, PXU surpassed its highest single-day enrollment in over a half-century. On state report cards, the district has more A- and B-rated schools than ever before and, for the first time, none rated D or F.”
Clark County, Nevada
Meanwhile, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, there’s a new school opening in Clark County, Nevada—the Northeast Career & Technical Academy. It’s a mastery-based school, as “students will finish units and classes when they’ve shown mastery of the content.”
“There are 10 areas of study students chose from: architectural design, business administration logistics-distribution, computer science, construction technology, cybersecurity, diesel/auto technology, energy technologies, human and social services, teaching and training, and sports medicine. …
Competency-based education has been written into law for more than five years and a few schools have piloted it. But a state commission found that while a policy was in place, there wasn’t previously the support or resources for schools on how to implement it.
Northeast Career & Technical Academy is the first school in the state to implement it, [State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone] Ebert said. ‘I really see Nevada leading the way.’”
Meanwhile, six other schools in the district are piloting Arizona State University’s next education workforce model, in which schools move to a co-teaching model that I recommend in From Reopen to Reinvent.
At one junior high school piloting the model, “three teachers share the same group of 70 sixth grade students. ‘It kind of creates a smaller school within a large school,’ Principal Yvette Tippetts said.”
Missouri Districts Seek Waivers to Rethink Testing
Finally, this piece about 20 school districts in Missouri asking to rethink assessments to support competency-based learning through multiple tests throughout the year and real-time results gave me hope as well. You can check that out here at The74.
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Two More Before You Go
Readers of this newsletter recently received a piece I coauthored with Western Governor University’s President Scott Pulsipher about the runaway spending in higher education. The Wall Street Journal’s Melissa Korn, Andrea Fuller, and Jennifer S. Forsyth did their own report delving deeper into the practice. I recommend the article, titled “Colleges Spend Like There’s No Tomorrow: ‘These Places Are Just Devouring Money.’”
Second, as you also know, I’ve long predicted that many colleges will struggle and perhaps close, merge, or have to dramatically reinvent themselves over the next decade. A story in Inside Higher Ed by Sara Weissman offered a creative arrangement, as “Butler County Community College and Pennsylvania State University at Shenango are considering moving one of the community college’s campuses to the university as a cost-saving measure after steep enrollment declines at both institutions.” For context, “Penn State Shenango expects to enroll about 325 students this fall, compared to about 570 students a decade ago.” And enrollment at the community college campus in question has declined to roughly 55 students from 270 students a decade ago. Ouch.
My take? This is a creative arrangement. Is it enough? And do we need to see a lot more urgency, and should we have been seeing it sooner? Or, given that the big decline starts in a couple more years, writ large, if we see a bunch of presidents and campuses really acting this year, maybe that’ll be enough time. Stay tuned.
With the setting of summer, I hope the dawn of school brings more schools reinventing themselves to be able to prioritize the well-being and success of each and every student.
As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.