NGLC and Beyond: Mixing the Untested and Tried and True

NGLC just announced a big round of funding. 15 schools across the country were awarded grants of $450K each, bringing over $7M to schools that are pushing the edges and focusing on innovative ways to realize competency-based, personalized learning.

We were excited to see that the two schools we supported through the design process were winners. Alongside Piedmont City Schools in Alabama and Alliance College-Ready Public Schools in California we helped to design new models that have us really excited to see what transpires in 2014-15. We recognize that change is hard and while learning something can be fast unlearning is often long and teachers will be doing both at once. The results should be worth the challenge.

In Piedmont, AL, Superintendent Matt Akin envisions that 100% of the students from his three-school school district will graduate from high school prepared for college and career. The middle school breakthrough design, mBolden Piedmont, focused on three goals: 1) advanced mastery, 2) relevance, and 3) student ownership and builds on their past investment in technology, infrastructure, talent and training. The model re-imagines how time is used to ensure that students master key concepts while also providing time for students to develop and deepen their interests in life after school by providing them with mentors and access to learning opportunities connected to their desired careers.

At Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, where Education Elements helped develop and support the BLAST model over the last few years, PACE High School takes blended learning in a new direction, creating a mastery-based learning environment where students manage their learning and enroll in both online and onsite college level courses to extend learning beyond high school content. PACE graduates have the opportunity to graduate with a year of college credit completed, which will help ease the financial burden and entry barrier for Alliances’ low-income, first generation college students.

Every time we start an engagement with a school or district we find the right starting point is a combination of where they are and what we know from doing this type of work many times before. Some schools are ready to “break through” and do something untested. Others are ready to do something that has been proven elsewhere but that they have not yet tried themselves. Our end goal is not to forge a new path or trek back down an old one-- but instead it's to find the right path to meet that district’s goals, the teachers’ vision and the students’ needs. What we care most about is not creating a new model but instead about creating a model that will work-- a model that will drive student achievement and engagement. A model that will protect the large scale financial investments that can also be part of this work. A model that is sustainable and will unlock the potential of any teacher to personalize learning for every student.

So as we look forward to the 2014-15 school year we are excited that 15 NGLC past or current winners are in our portfolio. We are inspired by the leaders that are in a position to be able to chart new territory and we look forward to being with them on the journey. We are also inspired by the leaders and teachers who are making change when change is hard. We are looking forward to supporting schools as they design models that are new to the world or simply new to them, all with the goal of driving achievement and preparing students for college and career. We love that clients are a mix of totally untested and improving on tried and true.