The first essay
My name is Marley, and I’d like to use this opportunity to tell you a story. I’m sure many of you can relate; I HATED the projects in high school. In a fast-moving, innovative world, it made no sense that my classmates and I were tasked with working on a fake prototype design for a fake company or conducting surveys for a fake research project. I remember thinking there must be a more engaging way to do this.
So, junior year, I signed up for a program called Vantage. Vantage was a program only at my high school, providing 4000 high school students the opportunity to sign up for different strands, such as health sciences or user experience. I signed up for the global business program, the broadest and first strand created around ten years ago. We had three classes, AP Microeconomics, AP Seminar, and IB Business Management SL.
Vantage changed my perspective. I went from being disengaged and questioning the educational system, to actively participating and pursuing new opportunities. The difference was truly black and white, and it’s why I’m writing here today.
Vantage started with classes. Combining multiple AP and IB classes into a three-hour block at an offsite office-style space. We were given difficult content and told to quickly digest it in half the amount of time a typical class had, then challenged to learn and apply it through experiences. Experiences around projects with businesses, guest instructors coming in to speak to us, and mentor relationships we fostered. Instead of the usual “cover-rememer-test-forget-repeat” coined by Tyack and Cuban, at Vantage, it is “cover-rememebr-apply-connect-repeat”.
For example, I worked with Cambria, the largest quartz countertop distributor in the world, to develop a brand-new retailer ranking system based on customer data. I learned the stories through guest instruction of a Senior Partner at Accenture Consulting and a new CEO at a startup alternative protein business named Meati. And I met monthly with a small business owner that helped me run my own small business. All of these connections were through parents of children in the program, or who have been through it. Kids have positive experiences, tell their parents, and parents want in on the fun.
On my AP statistics and IB Business final exams in my second year of the program, I was able to apply my knowledge from my experiences to tackle questions uniquely, ultimately leading to getting a score in the top 10%. I gained real-world experiences and improved my learning without leaving the borders of my high school.
Cutting Curriculum
Many have asked how we fit three college-level courses and additional work time into the normal three-hour block. The simple answer: we cover less content and are strategic about which courses should be combined, which assures the only work we are doing directly helps us succeed on the tests. This may sound counterintuitive, but it comes from the approach that the learning doesn’t happen in these classes, but in the periphery around them with company projects and guest instructors. This echoes Mehta and Fine’s assertion that much of the deeper learning that is occurring in schools happens in non-core classes.
The difference is, at Minnetonka, we bring the periphery to core classes like AP Seminar, where I wrote about AI in the semiconductor industry and organizational management of teams, both topics I was interested in and needed to research for peripheral work. This might also seem pretty simple, but I think it is truly where Vantage has succeeded the most. Richard Elmore, an education professor at Harvard, explains ‘‘The closer an innovation gets to the core of schooling the less likely it will influence teaching and learning on a large scale. Innovations that are distant from the core will be more readily adopted on a large scale.” Vantage has been able to easily adopt innovation in core subjects like English due to its small scale. Much of the reason cutting curriculum also works is due to the incredible flexibility in some courses, such as IB Business Management's very holistic and light curriculum, and AP Seminar’s ability to choose any topic a student is interested in for every single writing assignment.
Teacher’s Role
Cutting curriculum is only part of the story, with teachers being probably the most valuable (and unfortunately least scalable) aspect of the program. At Vantage, teachers were facilitators of a new type of culture, where they no longer had to be the smartest in the room, taught less, and advised more. Vantage teachers taught fundamental content, set us free to explore, and then became our friends and mentors. I still talk to my Vantage teachers today about my successes and struggles as I start college. I frequently send them articles or podcasts that relate to content I learned in the class, and will probably even send them this essay.
One of my teachers for my global business program operates a resort in northern Minnesota in the summer. My other teacher in my business analytics program runs data analytics for our district. Teachers practice what they preach and have raved about how rewarding their job is.
Every single teacher in the Vantage program is given extra professional development hours to either teach new teachers about the Vantage way, or for less experienced teachers, get taught. They have also created a series of teacher modules to streamline onboarding.
Many may say any teacher could get used to this model, but when I asked non-Vantage teachers if they would become apart of the program, they said absolutely not. Reasons included: “too much work”, “low academic standards of the program” or “don’t want to deal with outside parties”. These frustrations will be addressed further later.
Teachers are imperative to the success of the program. The program itself was even started by teachers at Minnetonka. There are many factors we will explore that contributed to the success at the start of the program and how it got to where it is today. But first, there is context needed about the district itself.
Wellbeing
As a high-performing district, Minnetonka’s high standards came at a cost. Burnout of students was growing each year, with engagement beginning to plummet and the focus of high-level classes being taken to an extreme. Many students had become significantly overwhelmed and stressed as they entered high school according to a 2017 study that was sparked by a suicide in the community.
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
Minnetonka unsurprisingly had little issues with No Child Left Behind and even gained many incentives. The average 5th grader at Minnetonka has the Reading and Math performance of an 11th grader. In 2013, my elementary school received a national blue ribbon. When the president at the time Barack Obama waived Minnesota from the NCLB in February of 2012, Minnetonka was assigned to be a model school for what other schools in the state should aspire in terms of academic achievement. But at the same time, Minnetonka and our superintendent often argued that NCLB hurt innovation. Peterson explained that NCLB “focuses on mediocrity instead of quality, categorizes children in ways that conflict with district needs, hurts enthusiasm in schools, and can produce numbers that can cast failure on schools otherwise working hard for success.” This take was reflected by researchers and policymakers as well, with Cohen and Mehta expressing their lack of support for NCLB due to the double standards and punitiveness. Once the waiver was complete, Peterson explained he was excited to move forward with district goals, instead of being micromanaged by the state.
The Big Hunt
On the back end of getting NCLB waivers and being freed from constant micromanagement, Eric Schneider, the associate superintendent at the time, was a strong believer in cultivating a sense of innovation at every level of the school organization. He eventually developed a yearly program called “The Big Hunt for Ideas.” Each fall, all staff can post ideas on an online platform and voting begins. The idea is to amplify teachers' voices in innovation, especially since they are closest to the customer (students). 250 ideas are generated and narrowed down to a few through further discussion and voting. From there, the few ideas remaining move into a workshop in January where teams test prototypes.
The Idea of Vantage
Vantage was developed through The Big Hunt for Ideas (TBHI) in 2011, with the original idea coming from Chris Pears, a former businessman turned teacher, with help from fellow teacher and former consultant at United Health Care, Brent Veninga. Chris explained early on in the program, "When you start to explore fields at an earlier age you really can find your passion in life." He added that he was very fortunate he found a career he loved, and he wants everyone else to find the same. When discussing industries, he explained, "You see the variety and differences, the qualities and shortcomings of all of them.” Chris had the idea for Vantage in his head for many years, but TBHI sparked the initiative to get it going.
In 2012, district leaders approved the global business strand of Vantage to begin, committing a large sum of money to support a director and additional resources to get started. Much of the support came from Superintendent Dennis Peterson. He was committed to becoming the “best in the education business”, with prior initiatives like an immersion program and one-on-one iPad programs seeing massive success and turning around low enrollment numbers and budget shortfalls throughout the early 2000s. This paved the way for massive investment in Vantage, a very risky first-of-its-kind program to take a chance on significantly increasing enrollment further.
It was worth it, my school has seen a significant return on its investment, with increased open enrollment in the district. For each open enrolled student, the state gives our school around 15K. But not every school can justify the significant capital investment upfront and wait this long for ROI. And on the national and state level, many more incentives for open enrollment numbers need to be created.
Prime Timing
As Vantage continues to develop and improve today, the nation is beginning to focus on the future of deeper learning, the intersection of “mastery, identity, and creativity” that Jal Mehta expressed through his research. These values are essential to keep in mind for delivering a dynamic yet purposeful experience to every student. This is precisely what Vantage provides: a place where students can find a career they love through trial and error, ultimately discovering their identity. Every project requires creativity while connecting it back to the fundamental curriculum. The program reinforces mastery learning because the content students genuinely need to know is based on the content repeated through experiences, not on an artificially formed test. It’s crazy how much better I knew the content that mattered by the end of the program. The CRPE and ASU Teachers College recently released a study expressing the “need to go beyond pilots for more career-relevant high schools that blur the lines among high school, college, and careers.” They also reflect Ripl’s core concept that “the new American high school would connect students to meaningful work in their communities and to expert knowledge around the globe.”
I truly believe school will be revolutionized in the next ten years. More and more analysts are questioning the fundamental grammar of schooling, everything from age-divided classes to seat time to credit policies as Tyack and Cuban covered.
As I ended my time at Vantage, I began to ask why we couldn’t do this at other schools. Vantage made college feel like a step backward. Quickly, I realized the amount of time the team at Vantage, made up of three former consultants, was doing behind the scenes to connect us with the real world. As well, many factors led to Minnetonka’s success with Vantage.
The Idea of Ripl
This is where Ripl comes in; we are the online platform that replaces the backend I experienced in high school, connecting schools and companies to offer the same experiences of company projects, guest instruction, and mentor relationships. This program is for every student, whether their track is a 4-year, 2-year, technical program, apprenticeship, or something else. It dynamically prepares students for the next step by helping them find a career/interest they love. Schools can still increase their scores, engagement, and enrollment at a lower cost than a brick-and-mortar program.
Our concept still requires boots on the ground, including teachers and administration willing to break down the barrier between schools and the outside world. In the following parts, I break down the additional relevance of deeper learning with the Ripl/Vantage model and what it means to scale this program.
Transferring Knowledge
Deeper Learning fundamentally seeks the question, what does it mean to “understand something deeply”? The short answer, transferring knowledge, according to multiple experts and John Dewey. Ripl helps students transfer classroom foundations to the career world to promote deeper learning while also improving interpersonal, collaboration and skills, learning how to work within an organization, and searching for a lifelong passion to pursue.
The Paradox of Preparation
Another concept that fundamentally concerned John Dewey was the idea of preparation. That much of the work done in schools by students may not be useful now but will be in the future. “Just grind through the concepts, and eventually this will be applicable,” many of my teachers echoed. Students who didn’t do Vantage that I talked to explained they were “preparing for my future where I can apply it.” The issue is, that simply learning concepts leads to a huge loss in deeper learning, meaning a less engaging, rewarding, and efficient pedagogy.
School as Startup
As I read through Mehta’s newest book, In Search of Deeper Learning, the part that clicked with me the most is when he outlined the analogies to what deeper learning looks like in terms of other organizations. He explained that deeper learning in schools looks like the mix between an artisan workshop and a startup. The artisan workshop aspect is represent by methodical and creative work with incredible quality that is transparent and is judged by the artist, not the need in the market. On the other hand, the startup aspect is represented by a vision to fix a social problem, through first brainstorming and refining, then through creating a real product and seeing if the community likes it. This yin-yang balance between building products for ones own interest and building for a market/need is a unique balance that Ripl plans to embrace.
Playing the game
Another reason the startup analogy really clicked for me was because startups are the furthest thing from a game. Many students, teachers, admin and experts talk about the gamification of school. From the letter grades to inflated GPA, everyone has just become their own number. Paul Graham, an investor and entrepreneur explains the different best. As he mentors many young founders eager to start and succeed in building a company, many of them ask for tricks to succeed. Paul simply says the way to succeed is by building a good product. Startups are a small part of the world where the best way to win is by doing good work, and I can’t truly say that about many other industries. Gaming the system doesn’t work in startups like it does in schools, companies, or academia. We plan to extract from this concept, with “success” being a judgement of ones own work mixed with market demand for the work, not whether it fits in five different rubric categories.
There are many roadblocks, including limited class time, the fight for standardization vs. flexibility, and teacher evaluation systems. But growing traction of the want for deeper and more connected learning will allow this to become widespread across America using technology.
This story of Ripl proves that schools, companies, students, and teachers are all better off with an experiential learning model. Ripl does not assume the solution for better schools is easy, nor does it paralyze stakeholders by complexifying strategies. We are trying to reinvent the wheel to something better for every stakeholder, but for now, it starts with connecting schools with outside organizations and people.
There is definitely more to cover, and I do plan to expand this essay as a personal project.