Modern Red SchoolHouse

Specific Design Elements

The designers sought to structure a school environment that enables students to spend more or less time in learning a given concept and encourages teachers to adapt or integrate a variety of instructional strategies to meet the needs of students. Whereas those factors vary, all students are expected to reach the same high academic standards.

Although the designers assumed ungraded classrooms, accountability for both the student and school were built into the assessment systems. All students would have Individual Education Compacts (IECs) collaboratively developed by parents, teachers, and the student. As students grew older, they would take increasing responsibility for creating and presenting the plans in the IECs. Reports to parents on student progress were to be framed in terms of current student mastery of the MRSH standards. Ongoing assessments were embedded into the daily life of schools and were unique to each school. Remediation should occur when students struggled with a concept—with extra time or varying approaches to instruction—not in remediation courses offered in the summer or following year. All MRSH schools shared in the use of Capstone Units, which provided a culminating assessment of proficiency in a number of subjects over a subset of standards within those subjects. Capstones were interdisciplinary, focusing on such things as inventions, construction, or tall tales at the primary level, where a student might complete as many as 12 Capstone Units. As students demonstrated proficiency in all the standards for one subject, they were ready to complete a subject exam at the primary, intermediate, or secondary level. MRSH academic standards and subject exams existed for English, mathematics, history, geography, and science. Teachers at each school developed (or adapted from other MRSH schools) instructional units that prepared students for the Capstones—aligning with MRSH academic standards. Over time, the bank of instructional units developed at all MRSH sites would support teachers in providing multiple paths to the same outcome, that is, MRSH standards.

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