Rhode Island Department of Education is implementing sweeping changes for high school graduation requirements that leaders anticipate will open avenues of opportunity for thousands of students each year, creating college- and career-ready high school graduates equipped with real-world skills and ready to take on the rigors of academia or transition into high-demand professions. Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Angélica Infante-Green said she’d been leading the state’s schools for a little over a year in 2019 when she first came to face-to-face with the reality that Rhode Island wasn’t preparing students for their futures, shortchanging not only the students but potentially crippling the state’s future workforce. A deeper audit in 2020 revealed just how prevalent and pervasive the challenges were. After analyzing thousands of transcripts and surveying students and parents, Rhode Island Department of Education leaders learned that what students wanted and what their high schools provided them didn’t line up. Even more alarming, schools weren't providing the basic requirements to prepare students to thrive in college. When that information was presented to the Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education and the state’s education commissioner, they gave an immediate green light to create a new division in the state’s education department with the sole focus of reimagining high school. To achieve this, they recognized they needed data beyond test scores and graduation rates. Policy makers needed to understand what aspirations students hold for themselves, what barriers keep them from reaching those aspirations, what motivates and inspires them, and what skills they need to be successful in college or in the job market. Their marching orders from the top were simple: “We go big.” Here’s what they did. https://lnkd.in/dBb8HJ4F
