by Gary Kaplan
The twilight of the year is a traditional time of reflection. This year’s twilight falls at a pivotal moment, when the new technology of AI is disrupting every sector of the economy. Within that general disruption, the suspension of the MCAS graduation requirement has cast a pall of uncertainty over the education sector in Massachusetts. By some accounts, we no longer know what the goals of education are.
State Standards Stand
But close inspection dispels the uncertainty. In fact, only the graduation requirement has changed. There is no ambiguity about our educational standards. The state grade-level curriculum standards that were developed by teachers in the 1990s and continually updated since are still in place—all 193 pages of English, 211 of math and 188 of science. They are still tested by MCAS every year in grades 3-8 and 10. And they still tell us clearly and precisely where our students stand along a continuum of knowledge and skills that define the baseline of college, career, and civic readiness, and ability to compete in the global economy. Students are still scored and schools rated according to those standards.
JFY Schools Recover
In our current post-pandemic period, few districts or schools have recovered from their 2021 slump. Last spring, the state was 8.3 points below its 2021 score in English (ELA) and 2.6 points down in math. By contrast, JFY’s flagship partner schools exceeded their 2021 scores by a combined average of 4.5 points in ELA and 5.8 points in math. These results are consistent with our track record since the very beginning of standards-based education a quarter-century ago.
Downward Trends
We can acknowledge that all tests have limitations; but we can also acknowledge that there are universal foundational skills. And we can trace the straight downward trends in our state (MCAS), national (NAEP) and international (TIMSS and PISA) assessments of those skills. We can also recognize that our young people will be competing with the 13 million Chinese who take the Gaokao, the 800,000 in 100 countries who take the Baccalauréat, and the 2 million in 180 countries who take the SAT. Standardized tests may be unpopular, but standards are embedded in every corner of the global economy and every niche of the labor market. And AI is accelerating the spread and raising the thresholds of standardization.
The JFY System: AIMS
JFY’s success is based on a formative assessment system that helps teachers keep close track of their students’ mastery of grade-level standards with constant measurements built in to our instructional software. These embedded formative assessments show teachers exactly what standards each student has mastered and which ones need review. Our regular reporting and consultation help teachers make timely, targeted and individualized curriculum adjustments. We’re now enlisting AI tools to help teachers and students sharpen their focus and quicken their responsiveness to accomplish that learning with greater efficiency and success. We summarize the system with the acronym AIMS: Assess, Instruct, Measure, Support.
At JFY, we don’t suffer from any uncertainty. We know what students are supposed to learn—what they need to learn to succeed in life—and we have the proven methodology to help them. We’ve demonstrated the effectiveness of our AIMS system decade after decade in the face of rising costs, uncertain public funding, and an economic environment that grows more challenging with every turn of the calendar page.
Dusk or Dawn
Twilight can be dusk or dawn. It’s dusk for the old industrial economy; but it can be dawn for a new workforce with the skills to meet AI’s leaping transformation of the labor value proposition. The knowledge and skills of our young people are always the raw materials of our future. But now, those raw materials look less like iron ore and petroleum and more like rare earths. It’s up to us, the education sector, to mine and refine those skills.
JFY will continue to innovate, demonstrate and replicate to turn this pivotal AI moment in the direction of opportunity for all young people. The mission of mining and refining falls to the education sector; but we cannot fulfill it without the full partnership of financial, business, political and social sectors.
It’s up to all of us to make sure this year’s twilight brightens into a new dawn.
Gary Kaplan is the executive director of JFYNetWorks.
Other posts authored by Gary can be found here.
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