Kentucky Board of Education subcommittee begins work on Portrait of Learner/Graduate statewide model

The Kentucky Board of Training (KBE) Portrait of Learner/Graduate Subcommittee met for the primary time on Might 16 to start taking steps to create a imaginative and prescient assertion describing what a learner ought to know and be capable of do earlier than they graduate highschool.

“As we transfer into the work of reimagining the learner expertise for each public college little one in Kentucky, I’m excited for the Kentucky Board of Training to start a deep dive into making a statewide mannequin for a portrait of a learner/graduate,” mentioned KBE Chair Lu S. Younger. “This work will heart on constructing inclusive neighborhood partnerships to strike a brand new steadiness between the educating of content material and tutorial mastery, with expertise and tendencies that can put together each learner to be innovation-ready graduates and productive residents of our Commonwealth.

“The cost for the subcommittee is to guage what ought to be in our portrait of a learner/graduate and the way that may assist and improve the profiles that our public college districts have already adopted.”

One of many KBE’s present objectives is a want to “promote the creation of a statewide portrait of a learner/graduate, figuring out the information, expertise and tendencies all Kentucky learners must turn out to be profitable residents.” At its April 20 assembly, the KBE Curriculum, Instruction and Evaluation Committee accepted the creation of subcommittee to discover the event of a state-level portrait of a learner/graduate.

The subcommittee consists of 5 KBE members and different schooling companions, together with one postsecondary school member, a scholar from the Kentucky Pupil Voice Staff and 4 representatives of the Kentucky Coalition for Advancing Training. The 4 members from the coalition symbolize dad and mom; enterprise homeowners and neighborhood members; academics; and college/district directors.

The primary assembly targeted on the historical past of a portrait of the learner/graduate in Kentucky, with the dialogue led by David Cook dinner, director of the Kentucky Division of Training’s (KDE’s) Division of Innovation, and Matthew Courtney, coverage advisor for KDE’s Workplace of Steady Enchancment and Assist.

This effort to construct a statewide portrait started in 2017 beneath then-Commissioner of Training Stephen Pruitt as a part of revising Kentucky’s Each Pupil Succeeds Act (ESSA) state plan. Pruitt fashioned the Academic Improvements Work Group, which advisable pursuing a competency-based schooling – an strategy that gauges studying based mostly on a scholar’s demonstration of understanding.

Pruitt directed KDE’s Division of Innovation to implement this suggestion and contain native college districts. The division fashioned the Kentucky Competency Training and Evaluation Consortium (KCEAC), whose imaginative and prescient is to create a collaboration amongst districts dedicated to a systemic strategy to competency schooling and evaluation and, with the assist of KDE, design and implement a competency schooling and evaluation system.

Cook dinner and his workplace opened an utility for districts to use to the consortium and two districts – Shelby and Trigg counties – met the analysis standards. Each districts already had portraits of a learner, and the 2 portraits had practically an identical key competencies. This helped KCEAC to create “Anchor Competencies” that fashioned the idea of the group’s preliminary work.

After researching portraits throughout the nation and bringing collectively academics from all through Shelby and Trigg counties, the consortium discovered 5 anchor competencies that nearly each portrait has: vital thinker, communicator, empowered learner, collaborator and engaged citizen.

Earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020, the consortium had expanded to 11 college districts: Allen, Boone, Corbin Unbiased, Frankfort Unbiased, Jefferson, Logan, Mason, Metcalfe, Shelby, Trigg and Trimble.

With the launch of the Native Laboratories of Studying (L3) work final fall, many L3 communities have an curiosity in furthering their work on their portraits. The L3 communities are native and inclusive coalitions which can be piloting new evaluation, accountability and studying approaches. Of the 15 districts collaborating in Cohort 1 or 2 of the L3 work, 9 have been members of the consortium.

Cook dinner mentioned that although wording could also be totally different than what some L3s presently have, conversations with the L3s have proven that the statewide mannequin can act as a information with out taking away from the community-based work already achieved.

Members of the subcommittee supplied their preliminary suggestions to 5 anchor competencies and can go extra in depth at their subsequent assembly on their suggestions for the statewide mannequin.

The subsequent steps for the subcommittee are to report again to the KBE Curriculum, Instruction and Evaluation Committee at its June 8 common assembly.