海角大神

School without grade levels? A North Dakota district makes bold changes.

Allowing students to progress through school at their own pace and level is one of the ways a district outside Fargo is aiming to move education beyond traditional approaches.

On windswept fields outside Fargo, N.D., a bold experiment in education has begun. In a lone building flanked by farmland, Northern Cass School District 97 is heading into year two聽of a three-year journey to abolish grade levels. By the fall of 2020, all Northern Cass students will plot their own academic courses to high school graduation, while sticking with same-age peers for things like gym class and field trips.聽

The goal is to stop tethering teaching to 鈥渟eat time鈥� 鈥� where students are grouped by age and taught at a uniform, semester pace 鈥� and instead adopt competency-based education, in which students progress through skills and concepts by demonstrating proficiency.

That alone isn鈥檛 unusual; a majority of states now allow competency-based pilot programs, and many schools have fully implemented the approach. What makes Northern Cass notable is that very few mainstream schools, let alone districts, have set out to topple grade levels.

But as the movement against seat-time learning grows, more schools nationwide will be grappling with grade levels, deciding whether to keep them or to hack through thickets of political, logistical, and cultural barriers to uproot them.聽

Some school leaders insist that competency-based education聽can survive and even thrive within grade levels, or a modified version of them. Others, however, echo Northern Cass superintendent, Cory Steiner.

鈥淲e can鈥檛 keep structures that would allow us to fall back into a more traditional system,鈥� says Mr. Steiner. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to do this, we鈥檙e going to have to manage without grade levels.鈥�

While seat-time schooling is fiercely opposed by reformers, it is backed by state and federal law. Northern Cass鈥檚 reforms rely on North Dakota鈥檚 2017 decision to let districts apply for waivers from requirements such as hours of instruction.

Most states have something on the books to encourage competency-based options, but only about a half-dozen states have loosened dictates enough to dispense with grade levels, according to Matt Williams, chief operating officer and vice president of policy and advocacy for the personalized-learning nonprofit KnowledgeWorks.

In North Dakota, Mr. Williams and his colleagues worked with Kirsten Baesler, the state superintendent of public instruction, to write the waiver bill, and Northern Cass leaders lobbied legislators to pass it.

They pushed for radical change even though North Dakota districts were doing well by traditional measures, such as graduation rates, ACT scores, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, on which the state regularly ranks among the top 15 in most subjects and grade levels tested.聽

According to Ms. Baesler, however, 鈥淲e were too often teaching to a test. Educators wanted students to engage more and apply their learning in meaningful ways.鈥澛�

For students, more autonomy

Northern Cass took the first steps toward that goal this past school year. A few dozen teenaged students left their grade levels behind for three periods a day during Jaguar Academy (named for the district鈥檚 feline mascot)聽and moved through select courses with a mix of online lessons and teacher-led seminars.聽Some finished the material pegged to their grade levels by mid-year and moved on, while others took more time.聽聽

As a first-year pilot, Jaguar Academy is just part of the larger overhaul, which includes reworking both academic content and聽鈥渉abits of work,鈥� such as perseverance and collaboration, into progressions of competencies free of grade-level expectations.聽

But the program is one of the district鈥檚 first forays into a grade-free future. It plans to expand the pilot until it鈥檚 an option for all students in what are now called the eighth through twelfth grades.聽聽

For students like Katelyn Stavenes, a rising ninth-grader,聽Jaguar Academy is a welcome taste of autonomy.

鈥淚 can just lean back and do my stuff instead of always watching the clock and wondering, when can I get out of here?鈥� says Katelyn.

At Northern Cass, momentum for change began during the district鈥檚 2016 accreditation renewal when staff checked up on students after graduation. They found that graduates鈥� college grades tended to dip compared to their high-school GPAs, and the students bounced around a lot 鈥� switching majors, transferring to other universities, or dropping out. District leaders decided they hadn鈥檛 done enough to prepare students for life after high school.

According to Melissa Uetz, a special education teacher who became Jaguar Academy鈥檚 lead facilitator, the message was, 鈥淲e needed to help kids find their passions before they left school.鈥�

That meant more flexibility and potential for exploration in student schedules. The primary goal for Jaguar Academy was to give high school students more opportunities for job shadows and internships. More proposed changes spiraled out from there, including the decision to do away with grade levels.

鈥淭eachers said, 鈥業f this is good for kids, why not bring it to all of them?鈥� 鈥� Steiner says. 鈥淥ur conversation went from Jaguar Academy to 鈥榃hat if we tore the whole system down?鈥� 鈥�

Navigating the issues of tests, self-pacing

Of course, no matter what individual states and districts allow, federal law still mandates grade-level-pegged testing. Education departments use those scores to evaluate schools. Quite often, so do parents.

California鈥檚 Lindsay Unified School District, which switched to competency-based education years ago and has been mentoring Northern Cass, kept grade levels because of standardized tests. Lindsay Unified鈥檚 director of advancement, Barry Sommer, says he would love to scrap grade levels, because they get in the way of 鈥渢ruly moving to a 21st-century school that鈥檚 learner-centered.鈥� But California鈥檚 district-accountability tracking system is based on grade-level achievement tests.

For testing and student data reporting, Northern Cass still plans to link students with an expected year of graduation.

鈥淲e鈥檒l do whatever we have to do for testing,鈥� Steiner says. 鈥淏ut we won鈥檛 put any extra effort or incentive into聽[the tests].鈥�

Then there鈥檚 the question of whether to place limits on how quickly or slowly students move through competencies. For instance, another of the districts mentoring Northern Cass found that just letting students work at their own pace led some kids to slack off and disrupt classmates.

鈥淚 remind teachers that we need to put some controls on this,鈥� says Bill Zima, superintendent of the district in question, Maine鈥檚 Kennebec Intra-District Schools regional school unit #2 (RSU2). 鈥淔irst-graders are not ready to completely manage their time. Nor are seniors. Nor are adults, really.鈥�

The solution for some is grouping in a single classroom kids who would traditionally be in two or three different grade levels 鈥� a longstanding practice of Montessori schools.

鈥淎 lot of schools are finding ways to blur grade levels rather than getting rid of them,鈥� says聽Karla Phillips, policy director for personalized learning at the Florida-based Foundation for Excellence in Education, or ExcelinEd.

At Northern Cass, teachers plan to step in if a student gets more than three weeks behind or ahead of an expected 鈥渢eacher pace.鈥� Students who struggle will get extra support. Students who speed ahead will get a conversation about next steps.聽聽

鈥淢aybe we let them fly,鈥� says Steiner. 鈥淥r maybe they want to do an independent project, or work as a peer teacher, or go back to work more on a competency where they鈥檝e struggled.鈥�

Meanwhile, the district is also reworking teacher assignments. Last year, for example, the elementary teachers stopped being generalists and started to specialize. The idea is that teachers will encounter students in a broader range of ages and abilities, but only in their academic areas of expertise.

Breaking with cultural norms

After cutting the regulatory red tape and solving the logistical puzzles, a deeper challenge remains in the move away from seat-time. Grade levels are part of our culture, deeply rooted in how we think about learning and childhood more broadly.

鈥淲hen you meet somebody and ask how old their kids are, they say, 鈥極h, they鈥檙e in third grade or fourth grade,鈥� 鈥� notes Ms. Phillips.

Cultural norms have kept grade levels partially intact in Maine鈥檚 RSU2 district, which has hosted Steiner and Northern Cass teachers many times.聽聽

Back at Northern Cass, however, they believe that grade levels would become a crutch for students and teachers and ultimately stymie reform. 鈥淲e know that we鈥檙e taking a big leap and not everybody鈥檚 going to be on board,鈥� says Steiner.

This summer, Northern Cass teachers and administrators have been rewriting聽lesson plans and assessments. They鈥檝e also been visiting more-experienced competency-based districts such as Lindsay Unified. By 2020, Steiner wants Northern Cass to be the district hosting visitors, as a mentor to other schools mulling the idea of nixing grade levels.

鈥淥n their way to visit Lindsay or another of these pioneering schools, they can stop in North Dakota,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ecause there鈥檚 a school out in the middle of a cornfield that鈥檚 doing this transformative work.鈥� 聽

This story about was produced by聽, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.