Education Week - June 4, 2014 - 15

member of the state board.)
In spite of his success in business
and other aspects of life, Mr.
Bramante said, his negative experiences
at school have lingered.
"I know what it feels like to feel
stupid," he said. "I know what it
feels like to be afraid of my future."
That's why increasing studentdriven
learning projects outside
the classroom is so important, he
told his Bedford audience. In such
a system, he said, every child can
be a star.
Mr. Bramante's pitch won over
the school board in Manchester,
a former textile-mill town whose
major employers now include hospitals,
banks, regional corporate offices,
and Southern New Hampshire
University. Earlier this year, the
city invited Mr. Bramante to help
its schools connect with 1,000 mentors
in the local community.
While each of the district's four
high schools has one part-time elo
coordinator to help students find,
design, and assess credit-earning
projects with businesses and organizations,
most students do not
earn any credits outside school.
Ms. Livingston, the superintendent,
said she would like to see
every student take part in an extended
learning opportunity at
least once in high school. "Having
a student come into a business and
see firsthand what they're doing-
they're going to be learning from
the minute they step in," she said.
This summer, Ms. Livingston and
Mr. Bramante will hold meetings
with the high schools' principals
and elo coordinators to discuss
how mentors can be recruited,
trained, and matched with Manchester
students. A critical task
ahead for the district, she said, is
developing materials that explain
what a mentor is expected to do
and what achievement looks like
for a student so that mentors and
parents understand that outside
learning projects are more than
just fun field trips.
"Just as we have our learning expectations
in the classroom, the elo
expectations need to be very explicit,
they need to be on paper, there needs
to be an understanding about what
they look like and what they accomplish,"
Ms. Livingston said.
Business Backing
The state school board and the
New Hampshire Coalition for Business
and Education, a group that advocates
making education more rigorous
and relevant to business needs
in the state, have both endorsed the
10,000 Mentors initiative.
But Mr. Bramante's idea does not
resonate with everyone.
At a recent presentation to department
heads at a large southern New
Hampshire high school, Mr. Bramante
recalled, some teachers wondered
what would happen to teaching
if students chose to earn most of
their credits outside of school.
"This is the disruptive model,"
Mr. Bramante acknowledged. In
a proficiency-based system where
student interest drives learning,
teachers will likely not only spend
time lecturing but also organizing
or assessing their students' learning
outside the classroom, he said.
"Finding good partners for students
carrying out these elos is
a big hurdle, particularly in New
Hampshire, where a lot of schools
are in isolated, rural areas where
there may not be a lot of businesses,"
said Daniel R. Barrick, the
deputy director of the New Hampshire
Center for Public Policy Studies,
who has studied competencybased
learning. "If Fred or others
can help identify and raise passion
among folks who want to act as
mentors, I think that is definitely
addressing a challenge that is confronting
districts."
Finance Policy
But recruiting enough mentors
might not be the biggest barrier
to statewide adoption of competency-based
education, Mr. Barrick
added.
State aid to districts is still allocated
on a per-pupil basis according
to a formula that assumes you need
one teacher for 30 students in grades
3-12, among other things. That
doesn't naturally support a system
in which a large number of students
may be learning elsewhere and you
need fewer teachers but more staff to
guide them, he said.
The new model "may cost more upfront,
and less down the road, or vice
versa," Mr. Barrick said. "What's the
finance policy that most effectively
uses public resources to fund this
model? It's unresolved."
Also, he noted, "we're moving very
aggressively into this realm, but we
don't have the data yet that tells us
we get a better outcome from this
system."
Mobilizing 10,000 mentors for
New Hampshire schools "is going to
be very hard to do," said Nicholas C.
Donohue, the president of the Nellie
Mae Education Foundation, a Quincy,
Mass.-based philanthropy that promotes
student-centered approaches
to learning, and gave Mr. Bramante
an $18,000 research grant to help
him develop his mentoring concept.
"It pushes against some cultural
norms, that you have to be careful
how you connect children with
adults," Mr. Donohue said. "Some
will say, 'Are these people doing the
job of teachers; are they becoming
counselors?'
"But the idea you'd try to organize
additional assets around young people
to support their development," he
said, "is completely consistent with
all the research on development and
learning" that has shown mentoring
has positive effects.
It's also a timely idea, Mr. Donohue
argues.
"The world is becoming more connected
and distributed," he said.
"Learning is going to move to a place
where people get to learn in lots of
different places."
Coverage of more and better learning
time is supported by a grant from
the Ford Foundation, at www.
fordfoundation.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the
content of this coverage.
For a complete list of 2014 programs, visit
www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/transform
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