In this article, we share data from students and staff to frame the larger conversation around how to support student well-being through schedule shifts. Not only shifting the cadence of the school day, but also the progression of the school year from first day to breaks and graduations. In it, we provide concrete strategies for better using school time to deepen connections.

Read full article published on July 11, 2022 in ASCD Educational Leadership Magazine, Vol. 79, Number 9.

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In this article, we share insights from over 60,000 high school students who took our survey between September 2019 and December 2020, and we offer practical strategies that schools can implement to support healthy and engaged students of all ages.

Read full article published on March 7, 2021 in Jewish Educational Leadership.

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How do you describe the Mastery Transcript Consortium to someone who has never heard of it?

MTC provides a way to look at the whole child. The traditional transcript most often includes narrowly defined grades, and it rarely reflects learning outside of class, meaningful student growth, or demonstrations of proficiency in essential skills and application of knowledge. We aim to capture the different facets of a student, moving away from a transcript that flattens young people and towards a representation of their holistic achievement. We are currently working with over 370 schools and counting to broaden the scope of what we exalt as “achievement.”

What makes the Mastery Transcript unique?

As you can see on this page, our transcript shows mastery credits earned and courses that have been completed but no grades. Rather, it demonstrates a student’s proficiency in a clearly defined set of skills. 

There are two types of credits: foundational and advanced. Foundational skills are required to get a diploma. Advanced credits are examples of where the student has decided to explore further or go especially deep. Each school or district determines their own “competencies/skill areas” that are in accordance with the school community’s culture and priorities. Learners upload evidence that, once approved, will be attached to their transcripts, demonstrating their learning. This agency allows students to take ownership of their learning and demonstrate it in unique ways when they apply to college, for jobs, etc.

For instance, there are different ways to prove a student can read a map. MTC member schools  are changing the conversation around what educational experiences can and should be validated and presented on the high school transcript. Also, a student can articulate and demonstrate how they’ve met it–it’s a very empowering experience for a young person.

Why do schools prefer the Mastery Transcript?

Our transcript better reflects a student’s cumulative learning compared to a traditional transcript. It doesn’t force teachers to determine whether they should give a grade based on the student’s individual growth or based on how the student compares to the rest of the class.

Traditional transcript credits reflect a learner’s end-state proficiency whereas our underlying assessment models used to award credit are aligned towards growth. Consider two learners whose proficiency is assessed at regular intervals using a system with 5 levels of proficiency.  Their assessments are as follows:

Learner One:  4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4 / 4  (strong proficiency, no growth)

Learner Two:  2 / 2 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (mastery, high growth)

In a model that uses averaged scores, Learner One’s mean score of 4 suggests their achievement is higher than does Learner’s Two mean score of 3. But in a Mastery Learning model, Learner Two has demonstrated both high growth and the highest level of end-state proficiency (i.e. mastery). Viewed through this lens, Learner Two’s learning may actually be  deeper than that of Learner One.

What do students think about the Mastery Transcript?

We recently spoke with numerous students who are currently enrolled in schools that use the Mastery Transcript. Here are some of their thoughts:

“I used to be more of a traditional ‘AP’ student, and with the MT I am able to be more active in what I do and learn. I have been able to pursue things that I love to do and have that gratification.” – High School Senior

“I have had a really good experience with the MT both personally and with the response of the schools I have sent it to. Even schools that don’t normally take transcripts were happy to receive it. I really love the exploration and compiling of my own evidence. In my experience, I continue to be shocked in a good way with what the MT can contain and do. I have always used portfolio style, end of year compilation of evidence, but the MT has made this much easier to use and has also helped me find things about myself that maybe I didn’t even realize or know.” – High School Senior

Have you had any pushback from colleges about the different format of the transcript?

One of my colleagues, Edgar Montes, partners with admission officers to discuss how to read the Mastery Transcript, why it’s important, and how it shows a more complete picture of the student. Last year more than 100 colleges reviewed Mastery Transcripts, and all were able to use it. We have recently released a brief online module “How to Navigate the Mastery Transcript” for admission officers to help them build competency and confidence in reading the transcript as well.

How long does it take for a school to move to a Mastery Transcript?

The timing varies based on the school’s starting point, capacity, and bandwidth. Our Journeys to Mastery framework supports schools and gives them a base and examples to work with, but the school has to determine the foundational competencies that fit their school culture. We also provide quality control and guidance. Some member schools started using the transcript immediately upon joining while others planned a transition of five or more years.

What are you particularly excited about right now?

Right now we are deeply partnering with Utah at the state level. They have a lot of Native American reservations in the state and want to honor the valuable learning taking place there. For example, traditional transcripts are not designed to convey those community leadership skills that may have been cultivated tribally.  They have our largest density of MTC schools, with thirty-one in counting. Very exciting to say the least.

We are also working with partners to begin development of tools to help schools better capture ongoing student-centered learning even before adopting the Mastery Transcript. This project sets schools up for success with our transcript because those nuanced layers of PBL and interdisciplinary work are recorded with posterity to be translated as “achievement” using our tool. Our vision is that MTC can continue to embolden and facilitate those transitioning to Mastery Transcripts.

Teacher, filmmaker, activist, artist … describing Tamika Guishard isn’t easy, nor should it be. Each of the varied roles and many accomplishments that mark her resume combine to create the unique perspective she brings to advancing the conversation surrounding the future of education. Tamika brings experiences from such renowned organizations as National Park Service, DC Public Schools, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and Tribeca Film Institute.

Read more about her new role at MTC here

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Calculus: the pinnacle of a student’s career in high school mathematics. In first grade, students don’t even know what it is. By the time they get to fifth grade, one kid’s brother is taking it. By sixth they have heard stories about how calculus will make them tear their hair out. Then, in eighth grade, they learn about how their math teachers even struggled learning calculus. Finally, in their junior or senior year, they get to face the daunting class themselves.

My high school currently offers two different calculus classes, AP Calculus AB and BC. Currently, AB covers what is typically taught in the first semester of college calculus, and BC covers the second semester. The two classes have a little bit of content overlap, with AB ending with integration and BC beginning with it.

However, next year, the math department is switching its AP Calculus BC course from a class that covers one semester of college calculus to a class that covers one entire year of college material taught in one year of high school. Along with BC, AB will still be an option for those in Math Analysis right now.

This change is astronomical. Calculus is already a class that people struggle with, whether it be the topics in AB or BC. The classes always feel like they are moving at a high tempo. Yes, these classes are hard, but they are manageable over the course of a year. When those two curriculums are joined together to create next year’s version of BC, the already steady pace will inevitably double. The time allotted for students to struggle through problems and ask questions will be halved.

We as a community do not know if this change to a much more difficult course is going to be feasible for a lot of students. Doubling the workload of a course has never been tried at our school. We do not know how students will perform.

What we do know is that Calculus BC will be a challenge for even the most savvy math students, and people should know what they are getting into if they choose to take it.

However, since the stigma at my school is that we always need to achieve what is at the top, people will inevitably get drawn towards taking BC. This is a problem, because the rigor of BC is not for everyone coming out of math analysis. BC is for the people who love math and who are willing to go the extra mile to explore it, said math teacher Amy Dunn-Ruiz.

“I hope that anybody who signs up for calculus is signing up because they are excited about learning more math, love problem solving, and have a passion for learning the material,” Dunn-Ruiz said. “It is disheartening when people sign up for the class just to get it on their transcript, and you can see how that reflects in their grades.”

There should not be any pressure from anybody besides yourself when it comes to choosing your class. If math is your calling, challenge yourself and take BC. However, if you know that math is not your favorite, do not get sucked into taking it just because it is the hardest class available. If you are not truly interested in the relationships between math concepts, you will get left behind.

This same principle should be applied to the rest of the classes at our school. If you are someone who loves reading and writing, Honors English is the perfect class to push that passion even further. On the other hand, if you are someone who dreads reading your class copy of Things Fall Apart every night, Honors English is probably not the best choice.

What still holds true is the fact that you will do yourself no favors by blindly choosing the hardest course possible. The harder a class gets, the more important it is that you enjoy that challenge. Otherwise, you burn out.

We as a community need to rethink the stigma that the hardest is the best when it comes to choosing classes. What we need to push is the idea that you can do whatever you want to.

So, whether it be in Calculus BC, Honors English, or any other class, I hope that you are inspired by the challenges you face.

Hunter Disco is a Junior at Piedmont High School in Piedmont, CA where he serves a staff writer for the newspaper.

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“Academic dishonesty is any deceitful or unfair act intended to produce a more desirable outcome on an exam, paper, homework assignment, or other assessment of learning.” (Miller, Murdock & Grotwiel, 2017).

Cheating has been a hot topic in the news lately with the unfolding of the college admissions scandal involving affluent parents allegedly using bribery and forgery to help their kids get into selective colleges. Unfortunately, we also see that cheating is common among students in middle schools through graduate schools (Miller, Murdock & Grotwiel, 2017), including the high-performing middle and high schools that Challenge Success has surveyed. To better understand who is cheating in these high schools, how they are cheating, and what is driving this behavior, we looked at recent data from the Challenge Success Student Survey completed in Fall 2018—including 16,054 students from 15 high-performing U.S. high schools (73% public, 27% private). We asked students to self-report their engagement in 12 cheating behaviors during the past month. On each of the items, adapted from a scale developed by McCabe (1999), students could select one of four options: never; once; two to three times; four or more times. We found that 79% of students cheated in some way in the past month.

How Students Cheat & Who Does It

There are two types of cheating that the students we surveyed engage in: (1) cheating collectively and (2) cheating independently. Overall rates of cheating collectively were higher than rates of cheating individually. Examples of cheating collectively include, working on an assignment with others when the instructor asked for individual work, helping someone else cheat on an assessment, and copying from another student during an assessment with that person’s knowledge. Examples of independent cheating include using unpermitted cheat sheets during an assessment, copying from another student during an assessment without their knowledge, or copying material word for word without citing it and turning it in as your own work.

When we looked more closely at who is cheating according to our survey data, we found that 9th graders were less likely than 10th, 11th, and 12th graders to cheat individually and collectively. This is consistent with other research in the field that shows that cheating tends to increase with grade level (Murdock, Stephens, & Grotewiel, 2016). We also found that male students were more likely to cheat individually than female students. Broader research from the field about cheating by gender has yielded mixed results. Some find that rates for boys are higher than for girls, while others find no difference (McCabe, Treviño & Butterfield, 2001; Murdock, Hale & Weber, 2001; Anderman & Midgley, 2004).

Why Students Cheat

“I think what causes us stress during the school year is the amount of cheating going on around school…Some of my friends and classmates who have siblings or friends that took the classes before in a way have a copy of what the tests will look like. It makes them have a competitive advantage over other people who have no siblings or known friends that took the class before. To have people who have access to these past tests, it creates more stress on students because we have to study more and push ourselves harder.” – High School Student

Why are students cheating at such high rates? Previous research on cheating suggests students may be inclined to cheat and rationalize their behaviors because of various factors including:

• Performance over Mastery: Students may cheat because of the risk of low grades due to worry, pressure on academic performance, or a fixed mindset (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017). School environments perceived by students to be focused on performance goals like grades and test scores over mastery have been associated with behaviors such as cheating (Anderman & Midgley, 2004).
• Peer Relationships/Social Comparison: The increase of social comparisons and competition that many children and adolescents experience in high performing schools or classrooms or the desire to help a friend (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017) may be another factor of choosing to cheat. Students in high-achieving cultures, furthermore, tend to cheat more when they see or perceive their peers cheating (Galloway, 2012).
• Overloaded: Another factor in students cheating is the pressure in high-performing schools to “do it all” which can be influenced by heavy workloads and/or multiple tests on the same day (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017)
• “Cheat or be cheated” rationale: Students may rationalize cheating by blaming the teachers or situation. This often occurs when students see the teacher as uncaring or focused on performance over mastery (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017). Students may rationalize and normalize cheating as the way to succeed in a challenging environment where achievement is paramount (Galloway, 2012).
• Pressure: Students may also cheat because they feel pressure to maintain their status in a success focused community where they see the situation as “cheat or be cheated” (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017).

We see many of these factors reflected in our survey data. Students listed their major sources of stress as grades, tests, finals, or assessments (80% of students) and overall workload and homework (71% of students). We also found that 59% of students feel they have “too much homework,” 75% of students feel “often” or “always” stressed by their schoolwork, 31% of students feel that “many” or “all” of their classes assign homework that helps them learn the material, and 74% worry “quite a bit” or “a lot” about taking assessments while 70% worry the same amount about school assignments.

Reflecting high pressure from within their community, only 51% of students feel they can meet their parents expectations “often” or “always,” 52% of students worry at least a little that if they do not do well in school their friends will not accept them, and 80% of students feel “quite a bit” or “a lot” of pressure to do well in school. Meanwhile, only 33% of students feel “quite” or “very” confident in their ability to cope with stress. Open-ended responses reported by students on our survey reinforce the quantitative data:    

“It is hard to do well in classes and become well rounded for applying to college without something giving way… in some cases students cheat.”

“I don’t think anyone is having a great time here, when all they’re focusing on is cheating and getting the grade that they want in order to ‘succeed’ in life after high school by going to a great college or university.”

“Teachers often give very challenging tests that require very large curves to present even reasonable grades and this creates a very stressful atmosphere. Students are often caught cheating because that is often times the only route to getting a decent grade.”

Quotes like these suggest that there may be a relationship between heavy amounts of homework on top of busy extracurriculars and students feeling that cheating is the only way to get everything done.

What Can Schools Do About It  

Schools may find the prevalence of the cheating culture overwhelming—potentially daunted by counteracting the normalization and prevalence of achievement at-all-costs and cheating behaviors. Students themselves, in our survey and in previous research, call for a learning environment where cheating is not an expectation or everyday behavior for getting ahead, and students are held responsible for their behavior (McCabe, 2001).

“The administration needs to punish students who cheat. The school does not crack down on these kids, and it makes it harder for others to succeed.”

“Since I was in 9th grade it feels like our counselors only really care about our class rank and GPA. I am a hard worker but I don’t have the best GPA. Our school focuses too much on grades. This creates pressure on students to cheat just to get a good grade to boost their GPA. Learning has been compromised by a desire for a number that we have been told defines us as people.”

Schools can work with students to change the prevailing culture of cheating through listening to students about their experiences and perceptions, acknowledging the issue and predominant culture, and collaborating with students to clarify and redefine how and why students learn. Some areas we (and other researchers) recommend that schools can address underlying causes of cheating include:

• Strive for school-wide buy-in for honest academic practices including defining what constitutes cheating and academic dishonesty for students and providing clear consequences for cheating (Galloway, 2012). Further providing open dialogue and discussions with students, parents, and teachers may help students feel that teachers are treating then with respect and fairness (Murdock et al., 2004).
• Educate students on what cheating means in their school community so that cheating is viewed as unacceptable (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017)
• Establish a climate of care and a classroom where it is evident that the teacher cares about student progress, learning, and understanding.
• Emphasize mastery and learning over performance. One strategy is through using formative assessments such as practice exams that can be reviewed in class and homework that can be corrected until students achieve mastery on the concepts (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017).
• Revise assessments and grading policies to allow for redemption and revision.
• Ensure that students are met with “reasonable demands” such as spacing assignments and assessments across days and reduce workload without reducing rigor (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017)
• Teach students time management strategies (e.g. using a planner, breaking tasks into manageable pieces, and how to use resources or ask for help). Schools may even teach parents how to help students organize and manage their work rather than providing them with answers. (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017)

Overall, schools should aim to change student attitudes around integrity through “clear, fair, and consistent” assessments, valuing learning over mastery, reducing comparisons and competition between students, teaching students management and organization skills, and demonstrating care and empathy for students and the pressures that face (Miller, Murdock & Grotewiel, 2017).

References

Anderman, E.M. & Midgley, C. (2004). Changes in self-reported academic cheating across the transition from middle school to high school. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29(4), 499-517.

Galloway, M. K. (2012). Cheating in advantaged high schools: Prevalence, justifications, and possibilities for change. Ethics & Behavior, 22(5), 378-399.

McCabe, D. (1999). Academic dishonesty among high school students. Adolescence, 34(136), 681- 687.

McCabe, D. (2001) Cheating: Why students do it and how we can help them stop. American Educator, Winter, 38-43.

McCabe, D. L., Treviño, L. K., & Butterfield, K. D. (2001). Cheating in academic institutions: A decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11, 219-232.

Miller, A. D., Murdock, T. B., & Grotewiel, M. M. (2017). Addressing Academic Dishonesty Among the Highest Achievers. Theory Into Practice, 56(2), 121-128.

Murdock, T., Hale, N., & Weber, M. (2001). Predictors of cheating among early adolescents: Academic and social motivations. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 26, 96-115.

Murdock, T. B., Miller, A., & Kohlhardt, J. (2004). Effects of Classroom Context Variables on High School Students’ Judgments of the Acceptability and Likelihood of Cheating. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(4), 765-777.

Murdock, T., Stephens, J., & Grotewiel, M. (2016). Student dishonesty in the face of assessment. In G. Brown and L. Harris (Eds.), Handbook of Human and Social Conditions in Assessment (pp. 186-203). London, England: Routledge.

Wangaard, D. B. & J. M. Stephens (2011). Academic integrity: A critical challenge for schools. Excellence & Ethics, Winter 2011.

Samantha Selby is a Research Associate with Challenge Success, managing the quantitative and qualitative data analysis of Challenge Success student surveys and supporting the organization’s overall research efforts. 

Interested in learning more about your students’ perceptions of their school experiences? Learn more about the Challenge Success Student Survey here.

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The 10-month sprint of academic and co-curricular activities that we call the school year can overwhelm even the most well-adjusted students. In fact, high achieving students may be among the most vulnerable.

In Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy Successful Kids, Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles of Challenge Success, make a case that we, parents and educators, have created a pressure cooker over time that may not be serving our students well today.

They offer an alternative approach to preparing students for the future without trading it for their present. As we celebrate the third anniversary of the book’s publication, the authors’ ideas and methods are spreading and taking root.

In a series of articles, I explore with you their research findings and their framework for change, which they call “SPACE.” Educators and parents interested in growing students who are happy, healthy and adaptive, read on.

Time

The premise of the book and the motivation behind it are summarized nicely in the introduction and first chapter. The opening illustration is prosaic but it hit me between the eyes. It is the typical weekday school-year schedule for many, if not most, of our kids today.

The schedule runs from “Wake up” at 6:15 a.m. (even though I see young children already climbing onto buses in my neighborhood that early) to an entry at 11:30 p.m., which seems more like a tapering off than a conclusion: “Bedtime, depending on homework load.” In between, this lather, rinse, repeat weekday cycle is largely devoted to curricular or co-curricular commitments.

Sleep

The authors use this as a set-up to talk about the one thing omitted from that schedule, sleep! It seems to be the fungible part of the 24-hour cycle that every other part of our kids’ day wants a piece of. Do you know how much sleep our high school children should be getting at night? I really didn’t. I know how much teenagers want sleep – at least during the day, but need? I wasn’t sure. The authors cite a 2010 recommendation by Eaton et al. that teens get “approximately nine hours of sleep for healthy development.”

Do the math. That leaves 15 hours, which seems like a gracious plenty to get the rest of life done, but not if we, the adults in their lives, are going to program (at least) 17 hours five days a week. Pope and her fellow researchers found in a 2013 study at what they call “high-achieving schools,” that “high school students get, on average, about six and a half hours of sleep each night.”

Stress

Lack of sleep is not the only effect. The book’s analysis links over-programming with increased stress and self-destructive behaviors in teenagers, including cutting, use of stimulant drugs and alcohol as well as cheating. And here’s where it really rang true for me, having served both in the college and independent school world:

The effects of this unhealthy stress and overload reach beyond high school; nationwide, 50 percent of college students have felt overwhelming anxiety and 30 percent reported that they felt so depressed it was difficult to function (American College Health Association 2012). Many students and parents feel they have no choice but to continue day after day at this frantic pace. They believe the prospect of a good education and future employment and security are at risk if they don’t. (Pope, Brown and Miles 2015)

As an educational administrator at both the college and K12 levels and as a parent, I have to ask myself: How have I contributed to this pressure cooker? And, now, how can we contribute to positive change?

Change

To affect lasting change, Pope et al. focus on schools and recommend a specific process, which their organization, Challenge Success, tailors for each setting and intentionally refines over time. There are some common characteristics though:

1. Involve all stakeholders, including students, “to identify problems and work on solutions.”
2. Create a team that will see the change through.
3. Dig deep to distinguish symptoms from root causes.
4. Go slow. Pick one or two issues and learn from the process for the future.
5. Translate ideas into action with relentless focus on parent education and faculty development.

Once a school has a plan, the authors advocate accountability through benchmarking progress. As their approach is research-based, follow-up surveys and investigations are important to determine whether the desired change was actually achieved.

SPACE

The balance of the book is divided into chapters that explain the framework or the lens through which the authors view the problems and the solutions. It’s easy to remember. Providing our students the SPACE they need to be kids and to grow into healthy, happy adults may boil down to this:

• Students’ schedule and the use of time
• Project- and problem- based learning
• Alternative and authentic assessment
• Climate of care
• Education for parents, students and faculty.

(Pope, Brown and Miles 2015)

So, I am starting to understand the first part of the title “Overloaded.” That is concerning enough to me. However, I want to know more about the second claim, “Underprepared.” If we are overloading our children, it would be with good intentions – right? To prepare them for college and for life. Maybe the stressful schedule is the temporary price we (and our kids) have to pay for success later.

I have a feeling that Denise Pope, Maureen Brown and Sarah Miles don’t think so. Let’s find out together.

With more than 25 years of educational leadership experience, David Rowe is the former president of a national liberal arts college and of the 9th largest co-educational independent day school in the United States. David serves as a Strategic Partner and Adviser for growth-oriented adaptive leaders in K12 and higher education. A husband and father of two sons, he and his family live in Windermere, Florida.

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