The EGPS Vision of a Graduate

Lately, I've been involved in a lot of discussions about test scores, the colleges our EGPS graduates have attended, and points earned on Advanced Placement exams. It hasn't sat well with me, primarily because of the quote attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt: "Comparison is the thief of joy." All week, I've been trying to ground myself in something deeper for our students and this community, and I realized it was right in front of me: The Vision of a Graduate. 

It was developed before I began serving as Superintendent of Schools, and it is the roadmap for what we expect of our graduates. There are four components: 

• Knowledgeable: Students learn factual, conceptual, and content-based understandings across a variety of academic disciplines. Through "knowledge" our graduates have the ability to transfer content knowledge to a variety of familiar and unfamiliar environments, situations, challenges, and an evolving sense of self and others, within a local and global context. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Connected: Students understand and value connecting with a diversity of people, environments, and perspectives. Through "connections" our graduates embrace the capacity of their individual and collective purpose and action to fully leverage their impact on the interconnected workings of life and the world. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Reflective: Students routinely think about their knowledge, skills, emotions, connections to others, and personal histories and apply their insights to future situations, endeavors, and learning. Through "reflection" our graduates use an evolving understanding of who they are, what they are capable of, how they can positively impact and fit into the lives of others - ultimately taking control of and responsibility for satisfying intrinsic motivations to make a difference with their lives. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Skilled: Students demonstrate diverse skill sets enabling them to communicate effectively, solve problems creatively, think critically, and collaborate meaningfully with others. Through "competency" our graduates have the skills and dispositions necessary to harness and use knowledge of a variety of disciplines, of others and of themselves, to pursue current and future goals in order to find their place in the world. 
  
  
  

There is no mention of test scores, although the EGPS vision includes being able to take knowledge from one conceptual base to another. The expectation is that our graduates will use their skills across a variety of disciplines to "find their place in the world." 

There is no mention of the specific colleges our graduates will go to or that they go to a college at all. This vision does speak to building connections, not specifically where, so that their impact on this world is shaped by their "individual purpose." 

There is no mention of Advanced Placement exams, though some of the analysis and problem-solving necessary for demonstrating success on an AP exam are named. The purpose of those are specifically to ensure that our graduates find their place in this world. 

The reflection I did to return to the Vision of the Graduate is an effort to help our graduates find "intrinsic motivations to make a difference with their lives." 

I live in the real world, and I understand that we must continue to assess our students meaningfully and authentically, so that they have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities for whatever their next step after EGHS will be. Perhaps it is a four-year college. Perhaps it is a two-year college. Perhaps it is military service. Perhaps it is a job. 

I am turning fifty this week, and one of the realities that I work hard to articulate for my own children, one of whom is a junior and serious about going to college, is that we can't always put a number on what is important. It took me three tries to break 1000 on the SAT in the late 80s and early 90s. I was told I would not get into the college of my choice because of those scores. My mother still has all of my report cards in a shoe box in the attic of the home I grew up in. 

I have lived for a half-century. I am in love with My Wife, of more than twenty years. I have two children I am proud of. I have friends that I could call and they would come at the drop of a hat. I have a job that doesn't feel like work, surrounded by people who share the same educational values that I do. 

I want EGPS students to be knowledgeable, connected, reflective, and skilled. And I want them to be happy, to find love, have good friends, and do meaningful work in the world. 

You can't put a number on that.