Personalized Learning & Educational Equity in Vermont Schools
Act 77, passed in 2013, introduced a statewide mandate to integrate personalized learning as a set of policies and practices for every Vermont student. Vermont’s ethic and practice of “local control” allowed for a widely varied implementation, based on the commitment, resources, and understanding for the components of this legislation. Nearly 10 years later, schools have implemented this legislation with mixed results and uneven reporting (i.e. anecdotal knowledge, case studies of success).
Vermont Folklife and project partner Conversations From the Open Road began a comprehensive review of how secondary schools across Vermont are interpreting and implementing Act 77.
Through extensive interviewing with school support staff, respondents identified common hurdles and also shared ‘what works’ in order to create a more cohesive and integrated approach to this pedagogical turn in our educational system.
A baseline survey of what and how Personalized Learning Plans (PLP), Proficiency-based Graduation Requirements (PBGRs) and Flexible Pathways programs are enacted in 13 high schools produced a detailed assessment of the assets and obstacles of Act 77 programming and support systems as experienced by educators, which will be organized into a report in late 2023. The intended impact is for school administrators and the broader public to help communicate the assets and barriers to full realization of Act 77 and offer concrete solutions for improvement and enhancement.
In its second phase of research (2023-2024), this project will document students' experiences of PLPs or portfolio work, Flexible Pathways options, and proficiency-based graduation requirements (see Three Pillars of Personalized Learning, 2017), and will examine the efficacy of these systems to produce equitable learning outcomes.
Why is Act 77 important? Widely recognized by educators as a foundational pedagogical framework for narrowing the achievement gap and better attending to both the underserved and historically marginalized students, as much as the students seeking enrichment in particular, idiosyncratic areas of study
Why Act 77 assessment now? Because, to date, no full-scale, holistic assessment of Act 77’s efficacy has been conducted. The legislation is approaching its 10 year anniversary. A review of its impact is timely in order to improve practice and outcomes.
Why an ethnographic lens of study? Act 77 is a paradigm shift in schooling and learning. Improving its implementation requires a holistic and multi-faceted understanding of community life, values and resources that shape and influence a school’s culture. It needs a paradigm shift in how it is assessed, which the ethnographic methods Vermont Folklife employs are designed to do.
Why is personalized learning crucial for Vermont? This state has one of the highest graduation completion rates in the country, but also one of the highest dropout rates from higher education. The disconnect demonstrates that graduation needs to better serve and prepare students for 21st century skills and real-world application.
What Vermont schools offer: Progressive education policies are codified in the state’s public school system. The challenge is sustained implementation and local capacity and resources, from staff time to reconfiguring assessment systems.
Why Vermont Folklife: As a frequent educational services provider, we have a front row seat to personalized learning curriculum in the schools, particularly as it impacts students, educators, and their communities.
There is a critical need to apply an ethnographic lens of inquiry in order to explore the multiple factors – social, paradigmatic, institutional and systemic, political and cultural – that complicate how educational equity is experienced on the ground. This project seeks to reflect and help support working models and evaluative processes to those involved and directly impacted.
Credit: Thompson, Scott. “Taking Stock on Implementing Vermont’s Act 77.” Web blog. Innovative Education in VT (blog), June 14, 2017. https://tiie.w3.uvm.edu/blog/vermont-act-77/#.YpbiGC-B0go.
Reference:
n.d. Making Revisions to the Grammar of Schooling: Education After COVID-19. Vermont Agency of Education, 2020.
