The Center for PPP shares quotes from pioneers of education to transform the experience of school for students. Ask students to describe school and they will use the word "boring." Roger Schank, Dennis Littky, Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High, Big Picture Learning, Elliot Washor, John Spencer, Ken Robinson, George Couros, Abraham Fischler and John Dewey are some of the pioneers that we support and we ask you to click on their social media.
Imagine that the year is 2075. The Mastery Transcript is nearly 60 years old... Thousands of schools are using the portfolio system and the "focus on skills" has spread to other countries.
When we visit a classroom, what tools do we see students using?
-- if we see paper sheets, could one of those sheets look like a worksheet that Boy Scouts currently use?
Here is a screenshot of a page from a worksheet used for
Here is the letter that I wrote to request permission to reprint examples of their worksheets.
Hello
I'm a teacher and I'm thinking about how to shift away from grades.
Are you familiar with the Mastery Transcript program? (the quote by Tony Wagner at the end of this email message shows you where the future of education is heading).
mastery.org
TinyURL.com/noGradesVideo The 3-minute video explains how grades interfere with learning and how 150 private schools are shifting to a focus on skills.
The value of worksheets became clear to me when I saw the "Citizenship in the World" worksheet. http://www.usscouts.org/mb/worksheets/Citizenship-in-the-World.pdf
I'm putting together a free ebook to help teachers get ready to shift to portfolios. TINYURL.com/FWPbestPracticesTeachers. I would like to include some examples of the worksheets that you have created, such as the "Citizenship in the World."
-- links to PDFs sometimes change
-- readers are more likely to examine a document when the document is reprinted in the book
-- "go to this link and see an example of a worksheet" is less effective than "below is a reprint of a worksheet."
I'm a lazy reader. I'll look at something if you put it in front of me, but I am not always good at clicking and taking time to see an example.
WORDING
When teaching teachers how to make the shift away from "grading" and toward "coaching and guiding," I think your worksheets will be helpful.
Look at this wording
This Workbook can help you organize your thoughts as you prepare to meet with your merit badge counselor. You still must satisfy your counselor that you can demonstrate each skill and have learned the information. You should use the work space provided for each requirement to keep track of which requirements have been completed, and to make notes for discussing the item with your counselor, not for providing full and complete answers. If a requirement says that you must take an action using words such as "discuss", "show", "tell", "explain", "demonstrate", "identify", etc, that is what you must do.
This is a clear statement about what is expected. I am writing to you to ask for permission (1) to adapt some of the wording and (2) to reprint some of the worksheets to show parents, students and teachers what to look for in a good worksheet.
For example
This Worksheet can help you organize your thoughts as you prepare to meet with your teacher or advisor for your portfolio. You still must show your teacher that you can demonstrate each skill and have learned the information. You should use the work space provided for each requirement to keep track of which requirements have been completed, and to make notes for discussing the item with your teacher or advisor. The worksheet is a guide. It is not for providing full and complete answers. If a requirement says that you must take an action using words such as "discuss", "show", "tell", "explain", "demonstrate", "identify", etc, that is what you must do. You can see examples by going to TINYURL.com/ExampleDP to see how a student at High Tech High School shows, discusses, explains and identifies with documents in his Google Drive. (This wording was adapted from a worksheet used by Scouts when earning a merit badge. For more examples of worksheets that guide students in building skills, go to http://www.usscouts.org/mb/worksheets/list.asp.)
I would like to add "reprinted with permission." What copyright info or wording would you like me to use?
Thank you for your time. I look forward to improving the Free Website Project with robust worksheets that resemble the clear formats that your organization uses. Schools can learn from Scouts.
Steve McCrea
Fort Lauderdale Florida 33304
Whats App +1 (954) 646 8246 I accept text messages to my phone
25 seconds to boost the "No Grades" Transcript TINYURL.com/NoGradesSite THANK YOU
"The single most important thing you could do tomorrow for little to no money is have every student establish a digital portfolio where they collect their best work as evidence of their skills. Where they’re working with their teachers and other adults to present their best work, to iterate their best work, so that they actually have real progress they can show."
Tony Wagner
Search "tony wagner seven survival skills" for 21st Century Skills
Objective 1: Please click on these two links. TinyURL.com/NoGradesVideo (a video) and his report TINYURL.com/NoGradesScott.
Start using Scott Looney’s phrase “School Should Not Hurt.” #SchoolShouldNotHurt
Share those two links. Subscribe to the channel
Objective 2: Take time to learn about where Looney came up with his proposal (and why 150 private schools are preparing to switch to the “no grades” transcript
TINYURL.com/NoGradesBoston (an article by the Boston Globe)
Objective 3: Visit a site with quotes and websites that back up the procedures that support the “no grades transcript.” TINYURL.com/BadgesSchools.
Background
Looney is a headmaster. He is worried about anxiety and the focus on grades in students. What would shift the focus to learning?
Boy Scouts
Looney takes a look at the Badges program used by Boy and Girl Scouts.
Students culd earn badges in skills like “persistence” and “oral communication.”
The badges can be earned at any time during the school year (no pressure for a high-staes test).
IT’s like pass or fail. The teacher says, “You show clear mastery of this skill” and you get the badge. Or the teacher says, “See me” and the student listens, works on the skill and resubmits the work.
The student’s work is sotred and displayed on a webiste. It’s called a “digital portfolio.” You can see examples of a portfolio at TINYURL.Com/exampledp and TINYURL.com/abelSite. New Tch High uses this system and there are four portfolios by students at www.newtechhigh.org/portfolio.
The high school “no grades” transcript shows the badges as dots. A college admissions officer or other teachers click on the dots and the student’s work and the teacher’s comments (and the tstudent’s reflections) appear on the portfolio.
Examples
In the video “Imagine a transcript” the formats are shown. The report at TINYURL.com/nogradesscott (delivered at the New York State Association of Independent schools NYSAIS conference in November 2017) shows several possible formats of the “mastery” transcript.
The headline of the Boston Globe’s article has a clear title: the “no grades” transcript. That feature removes the stress associated with testing and the focus of student work is less about the nubmer. Do you remember when you wrote a report and turned it in? When the teacher handed it b`ack, what did you look at`? I didn’t look at the teacher’s feedbak or the marking in the text. I looked at the grade on the cover or on the last page. Under Looney’s program, the teacher’s comments are extensive to guide a student who has not met the standard so that the student can resubmit the item.
Why wait?
If you are a parent, why not ask your child’s teachers to start going “no grades” and focusing on skills?
Get the Skill List
New School in Virginia has a list of 12 skills TINYURL.com/12SkillsVirginia
An amended list of skills from a press release published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s website can be found at TINYURL.com/ListofSkillsSheet.
Use those lists to discuss with teachers
How can the school work in your class be linked to developing skills?
Can you give feedback without using nubmers or grades?
Can you give students opportunities to resubmit work?
Steve McCrea is a fan of the “no grades” transcript and personalization of schools.
He maintains a website with six teachers who have collaborated to describe 17 procedurs to “personalize the expereince of school for each student” using projects, presentations, portfolios and personal learning plans. To learn more go to TINYURL.com/CPPPsite
The Center for Projects has a free ebook to descirbe the 17 procedures. Ge the ebook at TINYURL.com/cpppClickHere
2) Micro badges (an alternative to grades) displayed in portfolios orfree websites
3) Big projects that earn academic credit in several subjects (displayed to digital portfolios) [instead of smaller projects prepared for one subject]
4) Personalization with Personal Learning Plans for each student
5) Alternatives to lectures:
Flip the Classroom, arrive ready to discuss the topic of the lecture (which was delivered before the class). The class includes concept checks and "Turn to your neighbor" using the techniques ofEric Mazur and the Peer Instruction Network
We welcome additional suggestions for videos to support personalization of schools -- send your links to ManyPosters@gmail.com. See our free courses about “videos to support the transformation of education” with a series of links that resemble a video game. Go to TINYURL.com/BadgesSchools
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This blog post earns me points toward several mini-badges for the following topics: 2f Explain information and compellingly persuade others of its implications (The explaining might need more work, but I hope Scott Looney's work is compelling enough to move mountains) 3b Lead though influence (I hope readers will see how to impose a viewpoint on friends and how to interrupt the lives of colleagues GENTLY by collecting items in a blog. Many of these words were originally sent by text message and by email. They are collected her for historical reasons and for the ease of reviewing these comments five years from now when we are all working in no-grade environments.) 3d Facilitate group discussions(If items are displayed openly, then colleagues who are busy can check in six months later and catch up) 3f Enlist help(please click on the blog post HERE and give comments and make suggestions) 3e Teach, coach and counsel others(I hope by collecting our comments, we will inspire others to build on what we have discussed here) SEE the list of Skills TINYURL.com/AListofSkillsPDFTo the group Gentlemen I want to introduce you each to the others on this group chat Wenceslas Dennis Jair Ugur Dennis -- Dennis Yuzenas is a teacher in West Palm beach who works at Oxbridge academy. He introduced me to national history day. When i wandered on that site, i found. Tinyurl.com/SunnHD. Remarkable project Matt - Matt Blazek teaches in Maryland and he has a book of projects for guiding students. Www.Tinyurl.com/blazekprojects. Omar -creator Enrique -- Enrique is a former principal in California. He was nice to let me interview him in 2009 when i visited his big picture "inspired" school. He created a "teach history backwards" approach to make history relevant. SEE THE VIDEO...and Enrique met ms. deeette naukana, a remarkable charter school principal ... EBOOK TINYURL.com/PersonalHistoryEbook Ionel -- Noel -- entrepreneur and founder of the John Corlette Society and promoter of JC's ideas See the speechsee the FACEBOOK page Wes -- entrepreneur, creator of a language learning system. and manager of ELSLeaders.com, a sailing school with a focus on skills. Will FEEL FREE to invite others to look at this blog post and the previous one HERE 1. What is Junto?
2. What is the history behind the idea (and why did Franklin use the term... and how did they pronounce the word in English?) 3. How can we use this idea? 4. The use of a BLOG to build 5. The value of inviting others to watch the conversation ------------------------------------ 1. What is Junto? The Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club, was a club for mutual improvement established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklinin Philadelphia. The Leather Apron Club's purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs.
2. What is the history behind the idea (and why did Franklin use the term... and how did they pronounce the word in English?) RULES
Franklin describes the formation and purpose of the Junto in his autobiography:
I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.
Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.
3. How can we use this idea?
We can spread the use of JUNTOS by asking students to build their own junto or discussion group. The rules (above) are laid out in the wikipedia article. 4. The use of a BLOG to build (sustain) a conference or an on-going discussion I started a similar blog at 50yearsofSubversiveTeaching.blogspot.com and you are invited to visit that effort to celebrate the Postman Questions TINYURL.com/PostmanQuestions
In the same way, we can update each other on the progress of the spread of Scott Looney's idea... as the YouTube views climb from 2000 to 2 million. 5. The value of inviting others to watch the conversation
Perhaps this public blog will inspire others to look at our discussions about The List of Skills CLICK HERE List of questions
This is the list of questions Franklin devised to guide the discussions at Junto meetings (from Franklin's papers, dated 1728, and included in some editions of his autobiography):[5]
Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? Particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?
Has any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?
Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? Or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? Of imprudence? Of passion? Or of any other vice or folly?
What happy effects of temperance? Of prudence? Of moderation? Or of any other virtue?
Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?
Who do you know that are shortly going [on] voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?
Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? To their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? And what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
Have you lately observed any defect in the laws, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? And what can the Junto do towards securing it?
Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?
Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?
Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?
In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?
Any person to be qualified as a member was to stand up, lay his hand upon his chest, over his heart, and be asked the following questions, viz.
Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.
Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Answer. I do.
Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Answer. No.
Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? Answer. Yes.
Go to TINYURL.com/AListOfSkills for a folder of possible forms
For a form with BOXES, go to TINYURL.com/AListOfSkillsPDF
======= TOPIC or CLAIM TO DISCUSS: The Mastery Transcript will create a need for training. I think there are four areas of possible needs that will arise when the Mastery transcript is adopted by 150 private schools. The four needs are a) parent education, b) student education, c) teacher education and d) principal education. Each audience has a different set of introductions, but the essential tools are with us right now. We need to -- teach history backwards, -- we need a list of projects and examples of projects so that students know what a good project looks like and what a needs more work type of project looks like. -- We have the "how to make a free website" book. Now we just need the structure to be ready for these documents.
Question 1. Is there an opportunity for us as a group and individually to spread the idea about the Mastery transcript? I think the answer is yes. But I look for your comments Question 2 Are there opportunities or teachers that currently teach who could use a sheet of skills? Download the sheets at TINYURL.com/ALISTOFSKILLS and a specific sheet at TINYURL.com/AListOfSkillsPDF
Question 3. There is a list of eight general skill areas with subsets of how to set up the skills or examples of the skills. Could you look at that list and then give feedback about what is missing from the list or if there's a better wording for some of the sub skills? Question 4. What do you think of the idea of mini-badges? Why does a student need to get all of the evidence at one school when there could be a self-badging process? The students are asked to give evidence for the skill that they claim, and if they give enough evidence, why couldn't someone self-badge or "evaluate yourself" and say, "I have learned this badge. I have demonstrated the ability to persuade Skill 2f because I have 300,000 hits on my YouTube channel and that clearly shows that I know how to appeal to an audience. This is evidence that I have a good organization in my communication." So the push would be to have a parallel badging system so that while we're waiting for the Consortium to reveal their structure and recommendations, students can already be earning badges. SEE TINYURL.com/CPPPScott for the "school should not hurt" pitch (presentation). LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS... One of the core principles of the Consortium is that there are no standards that everybody has to use. There will not be a standardized form or a standardized list of skills. So why not allow students to collect enough evidence and match their evidence to evidence on a rubric and compare their collection of evidence to an example of a student who has demonstrated good communication or good analysis or good collaboration, and then the student could just declare, "I now have a mini badge for this particular area I just need to accumulate 25 of these many badges and then I have a full badge demonstrating that I am a good communicator. There wouldn't be the same weight as a school issuing such a badge, but it would allow students who are not in a "List of Schools" type of school to create their own portfolio with badges so that their website looks like the website of a Mastery transcript. This would be a push to any school to see how easy it is to accumulate this information because students are generating the same information...from current work. Send your comments to ManyPosters@gmail.com. THANK YOU or text your comments to 954 693-6379 my google voice TINYURL.com/NoGradesBlog is the link to this blogpost. Let's spread this idea. CLICK ON the video We can update each other in this blog post on the progress of the spread of Scott Looney's idea... as the YouTube views climb from 2000 to 2 million.
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By James Vaznis
GLOBE STAFF JULY 09, 2017
For years, students have been stacking their high school transcripts with as many advanced courses and A’s as possible in an effort to get into the best colleges. But under a radical redesign of the document — being led by dozens of private schools nationwide — the practice of listing courses and grades could come to an end.
Instead, the new transcripts would detail a student’s mastery of specific skills, such as the ability to collaborate, think creatively and analytically, take initiative, assess risk, solve problems, or write coherently.
And what about that hard-earned A in calculus? Most schools would stop itemizing courses, credits, and grades on the transcripts. Not even grade point averages would appear.
The idea is to show colleges what students can do, rather than how good they are at memorizing information or taking tests. Supporters say the change should do a better job of predicting which students will thrive in higher education and ultimately in the workplace.
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“I think we overvalue content knowledge,” said Scott Looney, head of the Hawken School in Ohio, who is the founder and chairman of the Mastery Transcript Consortium , a group of schools that was created to spearhead the revisions and that includes several Massachusetts schools. “If you really think about what makes kids successful in college, it is the ability to think deeply, reason, write well, lead a team.”
But a move away from a standardized measurement could create a nightmare for college admission offices, as they grapple with a surge in applications generated by the ease at which students can apply online to multiple colleges at once.
William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College, said high school transcripts and standardized test scores play an important role in the admissions process and “provide a common measure that allows some comparison among applicants from very different backgrounds and academic institutions.”
“Secondary school grading systems and transcripts give colleges an estimate of how much a student has achieved day-to-day in the classroom and a way to measure a student’s readiness for college-level academic work,” Fitzsimmons said in a statement. “We hope that the proposed proficiency-based transcripts will provide such information as well.”
The redesign could be the biggest change to the high school transcript since the documents came into vogue more than a century ago, when colleges began setting admission standards for the number of hours students needed to study certain subjects.
Behind the effort locally are some big-name private schools: Phillips Academy, Milton Academy, Noble and Greenough, Newton Country Day School, Brooks School, Gann Academy, and Northfield Mount Hermon. The dean of studies at Phillips is taking a leave of absence to lead the group.
Several experts say that if these schools pull off the change, then public schools — some of which have already been experimenting with alternative transcripts — will follow. Most notably, the New England Secondary School Consortium, which includes education commissioners and public school educators from all New England states except Massachusetts, has been pushing for proficiency-based transcripts for the last few years.
For many of the private schools, the move is about more than just changing the content of a transcript.
They want to shift the mindset of students who have become so obsessed with grades that they are whizzing through their studies without realizing what they have actually learned, and they are unwilling to take the kinds of risks necessary to succeed in an innovation economy because they fear failure.
“Students can’t think beyond that transcript and see the entire life ahead of them,” said Sarah Pelmas, head of school at the Winsor School in Boston. “The pressure has become so intense.”
And the course grades on the transcripts reveal little about the kind of work students put into their class and what skills they learned, they say.
‘If you really think about what makes kids successful in college, it is the ability to think deeply, reason, write well, lead a team.’
Scott Looney, leading a push to overhaul transcripts without grades
Under the redesigned high school transcript, however, college admission officers would be able to see specific examples of student work in just a couple of clicks.
Although the exact design is still being hashed out, supporters envision the transcript would be online and contain three layers of information.
The first layer would summarize a student’s mastery of specific skills. Then the admission officer could click on a skill to see how that student’s school defined mastery. With one more click, the admission officer could see the various examples of student work that a school used to judge mastery.
“We will run some pilots over the next couple of years,” said Patricia Russell of Phillips Academy and interim executive director of the Mastery Transcript Consortium. “Once we think the transcript is working well, we will make it available to any school.”
Eliminating courses and grades from the transcripts could create a host of problems, especially for applicants to colleges that require students to have passed certain classes, admission experts said.
For instance, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education requires applicants to the University of Massachusetts and the state universities to have taken four years of English and math, three years of science, and two years of foreign languages, as well as other courses.
Beyond the requirements, judging an applicant’s performance in high school courses — especially those related to the major the applicant hopes to pursue — is useful in determining if the applicant can handle the rigor of a college-level program, said James Roche, associate provost for enrollment management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
He questioned the need to drastically overhaul transcripts.
Many of the skills the consortium hopes to detail in the transcripts are typically conveyed in letters of recommendation the colleges receive, Roche said.
“I’m not sure the world understands how thorough college applications are now,” Roche said. “I’m always impressed with the amount of work and energy that goes into the applications and the letters of recommendation.”
James Vaznis can be reached at james.vaznis@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeVaznis.
A consortium of more than 100 of America's best preparatory schools think a competency-based transcript can relieve the pressure on students. And education reformers say the clout of this group could be strong enough to bring about this change nationwide.
—Imagine a transcript that doesn't say anything about the courses a student took or the grades earned. Instead, there is a description of the qualitative skills and character traits that student mastered, along with examples in the form of essays, labs, and videos.
This is the vision of Scott Looney, head of Hawken School, outside of Cleveland, and the founder and board chair of the Mastery Transcript Consortium, a group of more than 100 of the most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States. The coalition is developing a digital transcript that tracks the whole progress of students, not just performance on tests and class assignments. It's a change that reformers say could free high school education from the century-long limitations of A-to-F grading.
“The problem with a grade is it doesn’t feel like coaching and guidance to kids – it feels like a judgment,” Mr. Looney tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview. “Kids are not focusing ... on what they need to learn. They are just worrying about what the teacher wants from them.”
Many US schools have turned from A-to-F grades to more descriptive assessments of student mastery of skills.But only a handful of states and major cities have made competency-based assessments available at every grade level. Most schools have confined the movement to lower grades. On the high-school level, schools and parents alike worry that not granting A-to-F grades to students could hurt their college admissions chances.
But that could change if the Mastery Transcript Consortium, which includes some of the most highly regarded private schools in the US, succeeds. With members like Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, the Dalton School in New York, and the Cranbrook Schools in Michigan, the group's clout could force a broader acceptance of the new transcript.
The consortium has worked out a first pass of a new digital transcript. The document would be standard across schools but each school would determine for itself the competency areas and mastery credits it wants students to focus on. And letter grades would play no part in the assessment process.
“If we figure out how to make this work, this could be a really major change in education,” says Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. “I’m extremely excited and optimistic.”
When the Carnegie Unit – the 120 hours students are expected to sit in class each year – and A-to-F grades became the standard for American high schools more than a century ago, they were viewed as revolutionary, too. No longer were students put through subjective oral or written examinations to gain entrance to college. Over the years, however, educators say the traditional transcript has turned high-school learning into a college-admissions game. Students strive to "win" by earning the highest grades in the hardest classes – but don't necessarily retain knowledge or skills.
The Hawken School has discussed experimenting with a pilot program with volunteer students, Looney tells the Monitor. Under the pilot, a teacher may, for example, attach a strong student essay to a transcript. Then a panel of faculty members would review the essay and either let it stand, or remove it and tell the student how to improve it.
“We know that if you want kids to get better at theater, at acting, or at basketball, you don’t give them a letter grade at the end of practice,” Looney says. “You just say, ‘Hey, you did a good job.... But at the next practice I really want you to work on this.’”
The Edward E. Ford Foundation announced last week that it will award the consortium $2 million, which members have pledged to match. Ultimately, the consortium says, it hopes to win over both public and parochial schools as well as the college admissions world.
Good or bad?
But the consortium could end up hurting the very public schools it says it wants to help, says Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell.
“Admissions at top colleges is a zero-sum game, after all,” she wrote last week. “If signal-jamming by the [elite schools] of the world sufficiently confuses college admissions officers into accepting more of their students, fewer spots will be available for other schools. Additionally, less digestible transcripts might lead colleges to place more weight on something that’s more easily comparable across students: standardized test scores.”
Some other education professionals express a mix of caution and optimism.
“I think it’s a promising development,” says Michael Reilly, executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “The concern that I would raise is if that’s the only document that is going to be produced by the school and handed to the student for colleges and universities, that could negatively impact students who are trying to go to schools that have not transitioned to be able to evaluate those and be able to make admissions decisions.”
But Randall Bass, the vice provost for education at Georgetown University, says a transcript like the consortium’s could offer value.
“In many ways the admissions process now is a game of trying to read in between the lines of transcripts to look for certain qualities that are not actually represented by high scores and good grades,” he says. “It could strengthen the process if they are successful in finding ways to represent, in a more explicit way, the qualities we’re continually trying to infer.”
It could also alleviate the pressure on high-school students, says Mark Hatch, vice president for enrollment management at Colorado College.
“We’re seeing an average 18-year-old that matriculates at our institutions a little bit more frazzled and a little bit less focused right now,” he says. “There is a growing concern among faculty at institutions that they are inheriting students who are very good at punching buttons and very good at collecting a 5 on AP scores and great grades, but are lacking the passion, curiosity, and freshness for learning that we’d like to have.”
Has it worked before?
Though competency-based transcripts are more often used in elementary schools in the US, some independent and public schools have expanded it to secondary school.
Wildwood School, an independent progressive school in Los Angeles, evaluates all of its K-12 students on academic and life skills. It also provides them with narrative assessments of their performance and standards-based evaluations. Most or all of their 65 or so graduating seniors go on to college the next year, with several attending the best institutions in the country.
Public schools in Windsor Locks, Conn. use standards-based evaluations for all students in ninth grade or younger, and will expand to the whole school system in the next three years.
Parent Ann Marie Charette says she has learned more about her sixth-grade daughter's progress at school than she ever gleaned from the traditional grades and transcripts of her two older sons.
“Do I care sh
“Do I care if she has an A? Or do I care she knows what a right angle is?” says Ms. Charette, who is a human resources specialist in the district. “I’m more concerned about what she knows and is mastering versus the grade that is coming afterward.” LINK
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How did Scott Looney explain the Mastery Transcript to his students and teachers?
Here is a memo
Dear Hawken Community,
I am writing to share with you information about a project my Hawken colleagues and I have been working on for several years, one that has come to be known as the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC). The MTC grew out of my concerns about the broken state of education today – a topic I addressed at some length in the Hawken Review from the summer of 2014 in a feature entitled “The Future for Education: Why Hawken Has to Lead.”
The Mastery Transcript Consortium focuses on one aspect of education that contributes to this brokenness - namely, the traditional high school transcript. For some time, we have known that the transcript is a powerful force in shaping the high school experience, one that is increasingly out of step with educational research and the authentic needs of students. This is particularly true for a school like Hawken, which is moving toward a more authentic, competency-based education. But we were also aware that re-imagining our current transcript needed to be a collective and long-term effort – first on the part of schools, both public and private, and ultimately on the part of colleges and universities. I began gauging interest in this concept of a Mastery Transcript several years ago by contacting heads of other well-established independent schools and found overwhelming support for my proposal among some of the most established, including Choate, Exeter, Andover, Punahou, Latin School of Chicago, and many others.
As I wrote in a blog published last fall, “The MTC is working to invent a tool that will make each student’s humanity and abilities visible and understood to colleges and to the students themselves." By changing the high school transcript, we hope, in the words of our vision statement, ‘to change the relationship between preparation for college and college admissions for the betterment of students. It is worth noting that in a recent article on edutopia.org, the dean of admission at Harvard University wrote, “we are not concerned that students presenting alternative transcripts will be disadvantaged because of format.” This is a significant step forward for our effort.
The MTC’s goal is broader than avoiding a “disadvantage,” though. As I wrote in that same blog, “The Mastery Transcript isn’t just about helping with the college process. It’s about clearing ground for schools to teach in ways that match our era and to honor how students learn best.”
Drawing on the collective wisdom of MTC members (over 160 schools and growing), the Mastery Transcript Consortium will oversee the design and development of a mastery transcript over the next several years, partnering with schools to support and train faculty and staff with the skills they need. It will likely take more than five years for us to adopt a fully functional model to be used by schools. In the meantime, Hawken and other member schools will maintain their current transcript model. Once the new model is fully developed, Hawken students will be able to choose their preferred method of assessment – the traditional model or the MTC model. In other words, students and families can opt in or out of the mastery transcript alternative. This will be an option, not an imposition.
Because the rollout of this new transcript is still years away, it is premature to share more detailed information at this time. However, if you are interested in learning more about the background, member schools, and response to the MTC, please feel free to visit mastery.org. Be assured that when the time comes to introduce the actual transcript to the Hawken community in its completed form, you will be equipped with the information needed to determine their preferred method of assessment.
