Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Last month, I wrote about the extraordinary opportunity before us to reimagine the American high school. The signs are everywhere: intense economic urgency, groundbreaking work in schools and systems across the nation, “portraits of a graduate” reflecting powerful community-based demand, pathfinding advances in state policy, the development of engaging, science-backed learning experiences and assessments and the activation of multisector networks dedicated to high school transformation. Russlynn Ali, cofounder and CEO of the XQ Institute, recently authored this elegant piece, capturing why the time is now.
This month, I am excited to share Carnegie's National Research & Development (R&D) Agenda, designed to advance broadscale high school transformation and student success. The R&D Agenda was shaped in deep collaboration with educators, students, families, policymakers, researchers and employers. I am particularly grateful to our Advisory Group, whose insights helped ground this work in the lived realities of schools and communities.
At the heart of it, the R&D Agenda describes a set of knowledge- and tool-building priorities for high school transformation to root, sustain and scale in the decade ahead. Critically, it recognizes that knowledge-building for education won’t get traction if it stays stranded in an ivory tower or locked in a lab. That’s why the work will be directly shaped by The Future of High School Network, a group of two dozen pioneering school systems serving nearly 90,000 high school students from all corners of the nation. These communities are already testing bold ideas, learning in real time and demonstrating what it takes to build schools that prepare all students for purpose-filled lives.
In essence, big breakthroughs are within reach – and they depend on persuasive empirical evidence and better tools, built with educators, policymakers and communities with daily responsibility and vested interest in student success.
I am enormously grateful to our growing coalition of partners engaging in this work, and I look forward to learning together, to build a stronger nation.
In partnership,
%20(2).png?upscale=true&width=450&upscale=true&name=CAR%20logo_INTER_Black@4x%20(1)%20(2).png)
.png?upscale=true&width=518&upscale=true&name=R%26DAgendaR2-cover_1080x1080_1%20(4).png)
.png?upscale=true&width=600&upscale=true&name=CFN_600x400_Feb24_v4%20(2).png)
