Why is deep change so hard in public schools? We know real learning doesn’t happen in tidy 50 minute blocks. But for the past 120 years, American schools have been captive to a “bell system” that is as relentless as an atomic clock. In this episode, Jeremy and Betsy explore the implications of the “Carnegie Unit” with researcher Dr. Brooke Stafford-Brizard of the Carnegie Foundation. Brooke shares how ongoing work might finally break the stranglehold that the Carnegie Unit has put on learning.
Who is Brooke?
Dr. Brooke Stafford-Brizard is senior vice president for Innovation & Impact at the Carnegie Foundation. She oversees Carnegie’s research and development activities and stewards cross-sector partnerships to accelerate the Foundation’s mission.
Brooke has spent the past three decades bringing a holistic approach teaching to classrooms and schools, grounded in the science of learning and development. She got started as a middle school teacher in the Bronx. She co-founded an all-girls public charter school in Rochester, NY and later served as director of data strategy and evaluation at the New York City Department of Education’s District 79. She also served as vice president for research to practice at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. She earned her PhD in cognitive science in education from Columbia University, and is a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow and a member of the Aspen Institute’s Global Leadership Network.
Explore More
The education research agenda of Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is ambitious and devoted to changing assessment from simply about grades to about demonstrating competency. Read all about it here.
Brooke describes Carnegie’s work on “durable” skills. You can dive into the first Skills Progression: Collaboration, Communication and Critical thinking here. All nine are described here. Full reports will be out in 2028.
Explore the history of the Carnegie Unit and proposals to change it by starting with this 2015 report, “The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Education Landscape.”
XQ is a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Emerson Collective, founded in 2015 by Lauren Powell Jobs. Its Super Schools Initiative awarded $102 million to existing and new high schools in 16 states. These days, it says its work has reached 40,000 high school students in 150 sites. Check out this film, The First Class, that chronicles the creation of Crosstown High School in Memphis, Tenn.
Earlier this year, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, published by Stanford University, hosted a series of 10 articles called “Renewing Public Education’s Purpose.” Check them out here.
Consultancy Knowledge Works just released this report on developing a local policy framework for student centered learning. It also has this description of “Portrait of a Graduate.” More than half of the US states have developed some version of the portrait for shaping learning going forward.
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