How the School of the Future Got It Right
This New York City, 6-12 school measures student ability through formative assessments, presentations, exhibitions, and tests. Their special sauce? A rigorous focus on measuring “authentic” tasks tied to real world challenges.
The School of the Future (SOF) is a grades 6-12 public school in New York City’s bustling Gramercy Park neighborhood. Rising 11 stories above the East Side of Manhattan, SOF is a small school — it has fewer than 700 students — and is well known as a progressive one, a place where students develop the ability to think critically rather than just ace a standardized test.
What makes this school different is this: SOF measures the full range of student ability through formative assessments, presentations, exhibitions, and tests that focus on authentic tasks to assess students’ skills and knowledge as they relate to real-world endeavors. SOF holds its students (and its teachers) to high standards of performance, demanding a level of rigor not found in many other schools. Notes Stacy Goldstein, the director and principal of SOF’s middle school, “We are serious about figuring out how to fold assessment and accountability into our progressive school culture.” And here’s proof that what they are doing works: Although 40 percent of SOF students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, 98 percent of them graduate and continue their education by going on to college.
Like all schools, SOF faces its own peculiar challenges. The building is nearly 100 years old and shows it. With classrooms housed on 10 floors, it’s not easy to foster a full-blown sense of community. There is also room for a wider and deeper infusion of technology into the learning process. Nevertheless, SOF is succeeding impressively. When we visited, we discovered a smart, enthusiastic, and ultra-dedicated community of administrators, students, teachers, and parents. We also discovered their unflagging approach to comprehensive assessment, which they call authentic assessment. Read more.
