Competency-Based Education
Ed Policy
What Should Leadership Look Like in the Age of Generation Alpha? Why Leadership Competencies Are More Important Than Ever
Education leaders must respond to six system shifts with clear vision, adaptive leadership, and future-ready competencies.
New Pathways
What Makes Dual Enrollment Actually Work: Robust Student & Family Support & Career Connection
The third installment in our four-part series with Britebound moves beyond course design to ask a harder question: who is responsible when a student struggles? This post makes the case that robust dual enrollment requires named staff, early drop windows, family scaffolding, and mentors who open doors to careers students have never had reason to imagine. For district leaders building or scaling concurrent enrollment programs, this is the support infrastructure blueprint you have been looking for.
Equity & Access
What Makes Dual Enrollment Actually Work: Sustainable, Aligned Funding & Data-Informed Evaluation
The final installment of our four-part series with Britebound asks the questions most districts quietly avoid: where does your dual enrollment funding actually come from, and are you measuring what happens after a student leaves? This post explores how funding design can either anchor students to high school support systems or quietly pull them away, and why tracking participation numbers alone is no substitute for tracking persistence. If you are building or scaling a dual enrollment program, this one is worth the full read.
Competency-Based Education
Why the Difference Between AI Literacy and AI Fluency Matters
Understanding AI literacy vs. fluency in education is crucial. Explore global frameworks and why fluency is the next step for learners' success.
Ed Policy
Beyond the Shiny Object: How to Assess Your System’s True Innovation Readiness
Too many districts launch the next big initiative before their systems are ready to sustain it. In this new piece, Getting Smart contributors Nate McClennen and Rebecca Midles introduce the 5 C's of R&D Readiness and 8 Archetypes of System Transformation, a practical framework for honestly diagnosing where your school or district stands before committing to wide-scale change. Whether your system is a Vanguard or a Frozen System, this tool helps leaders move from reactive initiative-chasing to intentional, coherent redesign.
Learner-Centered
6 Characteristics of an Education that Students Want
America’s education system was a groundbreaking effort to help a growing nation thrive in the 19th century. Now, 200 years later, the world has changed; the horizon looks drastically different. Collectively, we need to redesign our education system to enable all of our children — and, by extension, our…
Learner-Centered
Place-Based Learning Goes International: Lessons from Luxembourg
Nicole Assisi, a leader in innovative change, shares insights about what makes a strong work-based learning program.
New Pathways
Innovative High School Schedules
Here are five sets of examples of innovative high school schedules that expand student opportunities while providing more collaborative time for teachers.
Leadership
5 Obstacles (and Solutions) to Transforming School Systems for the 21st Century
Kentucky's Bullitt County Public Schools (BCPS) reflects on their multi-year journey into rethinking education.
Learning Design
Why the Best STEM Lessons Start with Struggle
Productive struggle boosts STEM engagement—start with a challenge, normalize failure, and coach students through iteration.