If, like me, you had wondered what the point was to adopting fuzzily vague "portrait of a graduate" language at the state level, well, now the another shoe has dropped, and it's not pretty.
Portrait of a Graduate language started to catch on a few years ago, spreading to at least 17 states. The AASA (the School Superintendent's Association) proudly announced a Portrait of a Graduate Academy in 2023 and slapped Portrait branding on all sorts of programs.
Theoretically, a Portrait is a vision statement "that clearly outlines the skills, competencies, and traits students need to succeed in college, careers, and life."
Here's New York's version of the Portrait language:
A New York State high school graduate who is culturally responsive builds strong, respectful relationships, valuing diverse perspectives as essential to a rigorous, inclusive learning community. New York students who embody responsiveness and academic readiness--demonstrating creativity, critical thinking, communication, reflection, and global awareness--will be prepared to learn, grow, innovate, and contribute meaningfully to society. These graduates will be equipped with the interpersonal and intellectual skills needed to thrive in an interconnected, ever-evolving world.
It's a pleasant salad of education-lite argle bargle, a description by committee, and it fails on the whole "clearly outlines" part. There's little in these broad strokes to draw objections, though I can't help but notice that students' self-direction and personal goals don't make an appearance. But as with the world of social-emotional learning, I question how one provides formal instruction and assessment for many of these qualities. It's all drifting towards educational goals like "the graduate will be a good person" in which "good person" is lifting the entire world on its shoulders.
Look, my own broad definition of education (Helping the student find their own best selves while grasping what it means to be fully human in the world) is very broad, but I'm not suggesting we design the whole education system of instruction and assessments around it.
And ordinarily, I would not get excited about something like the Portrait, which reads like one more vision statement that can be ignored because it is so broad it could mean anything.
Uh-oh.
New York's education leaders have decided that it could mean that the current three-tier system of diplomas (already an ugly idea) would be replaced with an assortment of badges and seals and endorsements. And students could display those "competencies" by means other than seat time and course credits. As reported by FingerLakes.com
Education leaders say the goal is to ensure a diploma reflects what students can actually do rather than simply documenting how many courses they completed.
The proposal would also expand the role of project-based learning, career-connected experiences, internships, portfolios and capstone projects. Students could demonstrate mastery through a body of evidence developed over time instead of relying primarily on exams and course completion.
We've seen this before-- called The Ledger it was a plan to just collect a bunch of "competencies" through "life experiences" and your "credentials" could be stored on blockchain so that corporate overlords could go shopping for exactly the meat widgets they were looking for.
It will, unfortunately, dovetail nicely with the federal vouchers that New York's governor thinks are super cool. Want to get some extra badges to lift you off the meat widget track and work your way up to an office drone seal on your diploma? Start applying for that federal voucher!
I can't wait to see how this works. "Hey, my shift manager at McDonalds signed off on my Got Critical Thinking paperwork-- let me have that badge now."
This is not an education system designed to lift up all students-- it's a system designed to sort them into different classes before they even get a diploma. "You're on the meat widget track?" says the friendly guidance counselor. "Then you need to chuck all this book learning and go get started on your child labor career!" You don't need a diploma or a transcript-- you just need your list of badges certifying the various "skills" that will be of use to your future employers (or, I guess, your present employers). Honestly, I did not have on my Bingo card "New York goes all in on catching up with states that have been implementing child labor."
Do I think students develop plenty of useful skills and areas of knowledge outside the classroom? I do. Do I think that work experience can be an important component of education? Absolutely-- I taught CTE students my whole career. Do I think these factors should be used to shortchange some students of a full education in service of some vague and ill-defined objectives? I do not.
The plan currently calls for implementation to begin in the fall of 2027. Here's hoping something derails it before then.
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