Right of Verticality

   Learning has not always been synthesized in age-based chunks. In many aspects of life, achievement earns the next set of opportunities not age. Students are neither extended nor denied additional opportunities due to their age but these decisions are based on merit. The most famous of these processes is the learning of all martial arts. There is no set entry age for martial arts, there is no set date of achievement, status is made step by step, unit by unit as the student learns the necessary skills and concepts to achieve each belt. The learning itself is a journey.
   The report card is a challenge for many in our system. I was so proud and jealous of my son's district, when I received an email this week from their Assistant Superintendent indicating that they were eliminating grades k-5 and moving to a standards-based document. I applaud their effort and wish I was willing to pull the band-aid in the way they were. They have renamed their document Progress Report instead of Report Card. Their steps are ones we all need to make. I can't wait to see their format.
    Our district began this journey before I arrived and landed with a document that has both standards and grades. Many on the committee openly agreed it was a document that would not work for standards measurement is a task of achievement regardless of time and comparative rank whereas grades, from the word gradient, openly means to rank in status. They are two conflicting systems.
   The challenge is, this is where we are at with Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation. The Common Core Standards are theoretically steps that should be progressions achieved over time that each individual should make. They are flawed, gradient by age, assuming minimally each child should step each point up the ladder by the end date of that age's step. Value-Added Measurement Evaluation points that we must move each child forward at least a step regardless of how high they are. The teacher is judged if they are not able to push the majority of their children forward at least one step. Like our report cards with standards and grades these ideas are in conflict.
    In the NBA, they have a rule of verticality:
"A player is entitled to a vertical position even to the extent of holding his arms above his shoulders, as in post play or when double-teaming in pressing tactics."
    The player is allowed to move into the space above them as high as they can reach. There are no ceilings in the NBA, on floors to catch their fall. Perhaps this conflict between Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation is the same stage as we are with the report card, stuck between standards and grades. Perhaps the next iteration of standards and evaluation will be the place we are striving to move forward to in our district, vertical learning. In a standards-based vertical learning model, parents, teachers, and students are provided a rubric of curriculum outcome steps they need to achieve. Learning is modular and children's opportunities, progress, and outcomes report indicate where the child is at in a standards area and where they need to go next. It informs all parties of the successes and the opportunities. Here is an example:

Children are able to tackle any unit they are ready for. Teachers are provided modular units of learning, the standards of achievement are dictated by the state, the curriculum objectives and modular resources dictated by the district, the learning opportunities designed and implemented by the teacher, and the progression through the curriculum objectives is dictated by the learner. Children can be grouped to take on appropriate task challenges together as merit demonstrates. 

   I have sent two different children to school. Same genes, same background, same parenting, same opportunities, but two completely different learners. I believe that they will both become happy, successful, high achieving adults. They need different learning opportunities at different times. No set of age-based curriculum, standards, or assessments could accurately measure their strengths and growth areas. For all of us, students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members, we need to give up the fallacy of grades and age-based standards and admit, we have different kids each with their own-right to verticality. Once we do this, we can design, just like martial arts, levels of achievement based on skills, merit, and outcomes. It will take some thought. High schools will not have everyone achieve the standard diploma. They may need to have different types of outcome diploma's (ie. Associate's Diploma, Math and Science Diploma, Engineering and Design Diploma). They will not all "graduate" at 18. However each of them will leave with skills and capacities to help lift us as a society. Instead of choosing the fixed-mindset of ranking through age-based standards and grades let us move to a growth-mindset of vertical learning, a model in which all can achieve.

Learning Can Begin At Any Age