Education must be practical. Recognizing its context and culture is a good starting point for educational leaders and teachers. As many know, KM developed a strategic plan for the next five years, completed last year. The strategic plan led to a new mission and vision statement. That mission and purpose have defined the context of our educational model, which is centered on practicality.

Public education must be practical and competitive. We function with tighter finances and greater competition whereas in the old days, there was less competition. Schools had a generalized focus, more of a one-size-fits-all. Our strategic plan work revealed strong public opinion in favor of keeping options and choices open for students, allowing them to focus on their interests in a more differentiated environment. 

While state mandates and rules determine some structures for public education, we are in limbo between being a government agency and operating like a business. Unlike typical municipal agencies and services such as police, fire, and parks and recreation, families can open enroll in and out of their home district. It is hard to imagine open-enrolling in a different police department. This puts us on the business side of competition. However, school districts receive pupil funding on factors unrelated to our educational outputs, such as school rankings from academic achievement and growth scores or standardized assessments. A business would typically receive more funding for higher quality. The state funding model removes us from the possibility of functioning like a business.  Ask any district CFO how school funding works; they will say it’s complicated, possibly with a squinted eye.

Our graduates are sure to experience this competition and cost challenge after high school. If I may briefly travel down memory lane, I recall my school counselor advising me to “just get a degree, and things will work in your favor.” Such advice today would be impractical, if not imprudent. The average cost of four years at UW-Madison is $120,000, including tuition, room, and board. Today’s graduates will benefit from a practical approach that includes sound planning. That student “planning” should be developed throughout the K-12 journey. 

Our principals and teachers are working to align curriculum and increase student offerings to meet these planning needs. At the high school level, KM will increase the number of Career Technical Education (CTE) offerings. According to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, tech jobs have a positive outlook for the next 10 years. Software engineers, cloud engineers, and data analysts are at the top of that outlook. The trades have fantastic outlooks in healthcare, electrical, and mechanics. Regardless of students’ direction after KM, they should be prepared for their future.

Academic alignment is a significant contributing factor in educational preparedness – an idea very familiar to high school athletics. If you want a strong varsity program, you need a strong JV and freshman program based on a solid middle school or junior program. This also applies to math, reading, and writing. In addition, if that varsity coach worked with the junior program, the loop of confusion would be eliminated. This is vertical alignment. It works the same in academics.

It seems impractical to expect skill and knowledge alignment without deliberate effort. In K-12 environments, high school AP teachers must be aware of, or concerned about, elementary instruction. If that instructional awareness is missing, confusion permeates the alignment. We can easily imagine this confusion in an athletic scenario. Academically, KM has implemented curriculum alignment to reduce instructional confusion. The four core subject areas are on a rotating curriculum review cycle, adding to practicality. This year, we are in a math review year. All K-12 math teachers are looking at student achievement and holes in our curriculum. These curriculum conversations ensure alignment at all levels and the best outcomes for our students.

In closing, I would like to add that education does not have to be confusing. Essentially, it is hard work, planning, and consistency between grade levels. I have found that sometimes, hard work is substituted for a bright and shiny educational object; fool’s gold. Sometimes, educational innovation is very productive, if it works with the alignment of the curriculum. Sometimes, the innovation is built on a false premise, in that case, practicality is lost. We must remain practical.