Gold Standard Credits: A New Model for Student Achievement
At hs.credit, we are all about gold standard 11th and 12th grade credits. If the proof is in the pudding, then the quality of student work will establish the credibility of the platform, or prove it inviable. Right?
The youth are, quite literally, the venture capitalists behind hs.credit. They invest their their attention, their voice, their expression and enjoy returns on that investment.
To wit, should we succeed and become the largest school district in the nation based on transcript data, without having any schools, these first investors will be rewarded with a basic income award of monthly crypto payments for 25 years.
Youth leaders aged 16 to 25 are welcome to participate in this opportunity to stack bags of crypto, and learn decentralized governance best practices.
But First Things First: Solutions
I’m so excited about the upcoming hs.credit August, 2021 retreat. Three weeks of learning, bonding, and building. Holy guacamole. 20 remarkable leaders coming together to forward 20 distinct leadership roles in a one-of-a-kind partnership.
Our collective job will be to get behind the youth who will deliver our message: we need better academic data than standardized tests. They will deliver this message using an app that is itself the solution: an opportunity to upgrade our collective yardstick for learning.
Quick Recap
Artificial intelligence will take any job that can be measured with a standardized exam. Those exams are defunct. So, how do we set up complex learning in a high school setting? The glib answer is “project-based learning” and the more particular answer is “11th and 12th grade students play the role of journalists in hyper-local media markets.”
NOTE: Journalism works for humanities subjects, but not always for mathematics. Imagine, in this case, problem sets which culminate in 10-minute videos a lá Khan Academy, but where all videos are by our youth for each other.
Skills not Content, Templates not Standards
Industrial-era standards are meant to benchmark difficulty of learning, a measure of our ability to handle complicated problems. Today, engaging complexity matters more than solving for standardized difficulty.
The real world that students are engaging is complex. Nuanced. Consider how the military discusses VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Standardization can only address shallow learning that is not grounded in skills we can practice in our daily lives.
Complexity is intimate, requiring skills that build vulnerability, a learning mindset, authenticity, and self-awareness. A great example of assessing skills-based learning can be found at LecticaLive.org. For example, look at the skills maps above and below or follow Dr. Dawson’s Medium tutorials or formal training to learn how to build such learning maps.
Converging Tools
Just as the brain research and developmental tools as well as practices like mindfulness are widely available, and as cultural responsiveness is being addressed, it so happens that digital technology has produced the NFT.
Non-Fungible Tokens are cryptographic ledgers of ownership. A non-transferable version of these is an ideal high school transcript, if each credit is accompanied by a 10-minute audio or video segment. By introducing digital literacy (video and audio), we upgrade our educational data—each credit includes a link to the originating media segment.
I am a high school principal, and this platform was created with the existing school system in mind. The idea is not to dismantle anything. The idea is to move forward, to deepen our learning past content and into application and then extension activities within the local community.
Juniors and Seniors in high school have learned enough content to begin to engage the world around them. By opting out of standardized testing, we shift our focus from test prep to the publication of academic media on a credit known for only accepting top quality work.
Not Evenly Distributed
Many educators are using project-based learning. Their work will easily be celebrated on this platform, giving them a greater following. Any work addressing education at the level of mindset would do well on hs.credit.
Consider the remarkable work of Dr. Hollie with his “VABB Nation” — the key to what he calls “bridging and building” our connections with students is a focus on micro skills similar to those from Dr. Dawson above. There’s much more to his CLR method.
The hs.credit platform will help celebrate these amazing programs by extending their reach and impact. VABB Nation could be a collection of high school credits, and all Dr. Hollie would have to do is certify those credits which follow his model.
I will note that as an active high school principal, the NYCDOE has been offering training since the pandemic which addresses adult mindsets, like Dr. Hollie’s work referenced above. That is a huge leap forward when compared to the days when we only spoke of Danielson rubrics or the CCLS. We seem to be moving in a good direction. My hope is that these efforts continue after our new mayor is appointed in January.
Will Decentralization Survive?
hs.credit is being launched with sweat equity. This is the hardest way to start an organization, but if it survives it becomes the strongest because of the investment of a large number of individuals in a platform that is designed to activate network effects.
The question remains whether this is even possible.
I’ve invested the past 20 years of my life to this work and a growing number of others are also investing their time and resources since the publication of my book at the start of the pandemic. The implication is that we all depend on our day jobs and our work at hs.credit is a second job. That’s a big ask! But if we can make it work, nothing will stop us since no one will have any power over us.
At a minimum, this hs.credit launch team will get us to a point that there is an app with content on it. Then we will touch base to see how decentralization is working out and if we are ready to take the next steps together.
Students Are Key
High school and college students will be the key. Not only will they be producing the first proto-credits which will influence all future work on the platform, but we need them to fight for updated data as a high leverage social justice cause.
If students are our first advocates with teachers, schools, local government and universities we will outperform any paid adult sales team. On the flip side, there are few opportunities young people have to invest their voice and their time for future economic gain. How many young people have had the opportunity to be seed-stage investors in a platform of this scale? Only those that started their own business during college. This is that, but easier, because a support structure is already in place.
