EPISODE 7: Missing Metrics & Students at the Center

Back to Freedom School – Ongoing conversations about education equity in the State of Vermont

Missing Metrics & Students at the Center  – in 2 parts

Part 1: At the end of this past summer I sat down Mike McRaith, the Assistant Executive Director at the Vermont Principals Association and we discussed some of the complexities of how to achieve racial equity in Vermont – in the midst of a global pandemic. “To my mind, the pandemic has sharpened inequities for some folks,” Mike observes. When asked why we should be trying to achieve racial equity in the second whitest state in America, he responded, “to me that’s more reason to.” When it comes to measuring a student’s success, he suggests that there might be some missing metrics, and that a step in the right direction may be having our metrics designed with, by and for students. “I’m always reminded that when we think about how to measure things, or how we’re going to do things, we should ask kids because they probably know.”

Part 2: In the second part this episode Emily Baker, a senior at Randolph Union High School, sat down with one of her classmates, Grace Brock, and reflected on her learning experience under covid. The biggest takeaway from their conversation for me, is how much Grace affirms the importance of personalized learning. A lot of students are different types of learners, maybe they are not the type of learner that reading and writing is their strong suit and math is something they can excel at, or doing something hands on like in the technical career program where you need to remember certain measurements… it should be about figuring out what each student needs and what their learning style is and then trying to work that into the collective as a classroom.”

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