There is water and coffee in the back so feel free to partake. The restrooms at the end of the hall. If you leave the building you can come back in but you will have to go through security. Those of you who will be participating in the conversation, you have microphones in front of you. You do need to turn them on when you are about to talk. I think theres a button that says talk. Turn it on, the red light will come on which will tell you the microphone is active. Were not speaking, please turn it off. We would appreciate that and you probably prefer we dont hear any private conversations as well. Those were speaking, we appreciate you being here. We ask that you keep your arm remarks to about ten minutes but i will be sitting with the secretary and try not to be obnoxious but i may waive or give you an indication if youre getting close to the ten minutes and asked that you wrap up quickly when that happens. We are looking forward to a great conversation talking about innovation in k12. It is my honor to introduce secretary betsy devos. [applause] thank you. Morning everyone. It is great to see everyone here this Morning Bright and early. I want to begin by thinking you for attending todays, and for all of you who are participating, we are very grateful for your participation and willingness to be here and share your thoughts. Last week we had a robust and very thought provoking program and how educators, innovators and institutions are transfer forming for their students. Todays focus for k12 education, we are very excited about and looking forward to hearing from the knowledge and expertise right here in the room with us. Before we begin, we want to say quick word about the focus on innovation. Earlier this year, i embarked on a really think school tour where we visited learning environments from wyoming to indiana. All of which are taking creative approaches to education for students of all ages. I continue to travel the country. Its one of the favorite parts of the job. We can go and visit and see great work that is being done in multiple places and ive really been inspired by the innovated educators that ive met thus far. There is still not enough innovation. We need more like them and we need more creativity and we need more like you here with us. The reality is there are a number of challenges and opportunities facing american students. In washington d. C. , they do not have all the answers. Government is not the best at finding new solutions to tough problems. Government isnt the best at being flexible or adaptable to constantly changing environments. In government certainly isnt the best at questioning the status quo. Government can be good at bringing people together to highlight the creative thinking and new approaches. So today, we brought education leaders and entrepreneurs from across country to share how they are improving education for the students they serve. While you hear represent a Diverse Group of schools and organization from across the landscape, common denominator is that each of you began by seeing a problem or deficiency or inefficiency. You questioned it and then you developed a solution to fix it or make it better. Your approach fall broadly under todays themes, helping each child realize his or her unique potential, shifting the paradigm and customizing learning. It is these types of thinking that we need more of. I would argue lots more in American Education today. We need to question everything. We need to look for ways in which we can improve and embrace the imperative of change. Each of you have embraced that mindset and your students are reaping the reward. Because, at the end of the day, success shouldnt be measured by how many dollars are spent or how many kids are passed along to the next stage. Success should be determined by how your educating and preparing each student for today and tomorrows challenges. Lets treat today as an opportunity to share what is working in your respective world and where impediments, at any level of government, are preventing you from achieving your mission of serving students. Thank you again for being here today. I am really looking forward to the conversation. Thank you. [applause] thank you madam secretary. We are going to get started. I have the honor of representing our presenters. I will introduce each person. They will speak for ten minutes and the other person will cooperate after words to speak after the second or last person, depending on the situation, when they are done we will start the discussion. First up, we will hear from two speakers in the topic of obtaining each childs unique potential. One is tom ernie and then we will hear from steven mooney, superintendent. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about the lindsay journey and the work we have done for lindsay learners. This slide will give a little context as to who we are and some of the challenges that lindsay learners face. If you look at our demographics, we are a Rural Community in the Central Valley of california. One 100 of our learners are on free and reduced lunch. We have high numbers of english learners, and when you look at the bottom statistic of 44 of our learners from a home where one or both of the parents did not graduate from high school and the average education level is fifthgrade in the community, the only hope that the lindsay children have is an Effective School system to serve them. Keep these demographics in mind as you see some of the successes that we have demonstrated on one of the later slides. A piece of data that is not up there is that 13 of lindsays children meet the federal definition of homeless. To further help you understand our context, i want to start out with a story of a real lindsay learner. It was before we started our transition to performancebased system. The story goes back a couple days after high school graduation, around 2008 or 2009. We had just hired a New High School principal said he was in his office on packing his bags. While he was there, putting books on the shelf, there was a knock at the door. The secretary said mr. Hammons, mr. Gonzales is here to see you with his son junior. The principal said bring him in. I just started, but have him come in. Mr. Gonzales entered with his son. Hello, how are you. Come on in. Nice to meet you. Mr. Hammons, i want to let you know that my son just graduated from Lindsay High School two days ago. Oh great. How exciting. Whats the plan . He said well thats what im here to talk to you about. Come on, sit down. Whats going on . He said mr. Hammons, i son has a High School Diploma from Lindsay High School in his hand. Could you give me that newspaper up there on the shelf. Mr. Hammons reaches back, gives the newspaper to mr. Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales puts it in front of his son and settle had, read this newspaper for mr. Hammons. The new principal. Read the article right here. After a moment of silence, junior puts his head down and begins to cry and says dad, you know i dont know how to read. In the further content of what did we do then and what did we build . We all know this person, steve jobs. Now, steve jobs was creating the ideal listening experience. He was not seen how do i sell more is tvs. He was saying what is the ideal experience that listeners need and he created hijinks. I was an ovation. We know this person. Jeff pesos. What is the ideal reading experience. We used to buy our books here and now its not just books. But now i shop for everything because it is the ideal reading experience, the ideal shopping experience. Everybody knows these folks. I see a few starbucks. Cops on the tables out there. It wasnt about making Better Coffee or more coffee. It was creating the ideal coffee experience. What have we done inland sea . We took some of the things inside what is the egg yield learning experience . Not thats needed for adults so that it can be convenient, but what is in need of a at their level, ensure success, challenge them and make sure they can have academic and personal excellence in life. This is a simple visual because people ask us on this journey what it is youre doing in this visual captures it all. It is founded on a feature focused strategic design and that at the very bottom is the voice of the community saying this is what we believe for learners at a key part of our system is engaging our community to take ownership for the learners in the community and when the community invested in it, we become service to the community leaders. At the center is the ideal learning experience all around her various components we build from advancing and developing leadership to instruction to technology and you can see all those pieces. I can spend days unpacking each of those pieces of the puzzle and it all rests on a culture of them empowerment and investment, culture growth, mindset and Learner Centered, radically Learner Centered a compromise in the learning center. In wednesday, huge major element if its all about the learner in everything we do is about lindsay learners. One i want to talk about when you look at this, ultimately what we are building in lindsay. Not just meaning that their level, challenging them and making sure they are successful because its not about grade levels. Its where you are in the learning and when you meet a learner at their level come and experience success in a different way theyve never been experiencing before. An example would be a learner may be seven years old doesnt go straight into the second grade. But if hes ready for the fifthgrade content . If we allow the group in regrouping of learners to ensure they are at their developmental learning level but most importantly is the last line on the fly. With this system, literally, were children of poverty learning english, literally desire to come back to school each and every day and youll see some statistics that demonstrate that in a moment. A key piece of a focus on is Leadership Development. I cant stress enough the focus we would need to have in our Educational Transformation in their communities and country about focusing on the leadership because without the leadership it is limited as to how far it will go. This shows how Many Organizations operate. Unfortunately how many Public Schools in america operate. There is no clear direction. Its a lot of people working really hard coming deeply committed to children, but going in Different Directions. One of the key pieces he did was initially started with their community and created the strategic design which gave us the direction. A very clear direction about where we need to go to create a Learner Centered system. We also found a lot of people in our system still going in Different Directions than that the insider as you see in this visual. As the Development Focus on leadership and leadership at every level of the organization from the learners to this Teaching Staff to the secretarial staff to the formal leaders as principals and district staff because in lindsay this is what we have. Deep levels of alignment towards division and a commitment to our learners in every person in the organization working towards that. They transport children so they go to a learning environment to learn. They provide nutritious meals and they will tell you that. I have to stress the Leadership Development and how important that is to transform learning in our country. A key piece of that is transformational technology. Clearly same technology is not the answer. Its not about putting a device in front of every learner. That is not what customized learning is all about. It is more about using transferred technology to accelerate the learning and allows learners to work at different paces and developmental needs. One of the things we provided as a Community Wide wifi product will provide access to the computer and the internet at school and at home. When we provided a computer for every single than the learner and what we realized that only 40 had comic dignity to the internet. In communities, Rural Communities of poverty, having limited access to the internet is a great issue with regard to access to quality learning. In lindsay, we work with our local community and they now have access for 95 of our learners and parent have access to the internet and they have their own computer that they could use to access learning. What was done is weve put nearly all of our content in online. Some Management System to go after the learning and understand where they are and their progression of learning. A learner management assessment. Although those are housed so they can see where they are. They will say this is where im going next. They own their learning. We build structures in providing instruction to ensure they come to a point of owning their learning. And this is not where the only place learning happiness. We still have a dolt, learning facilitators working directly providing direct instruction, providing Small Group Instruction from individualized instruction, but when you have the content accessible via technology, it allows the 21st of learning to happen for many learners. We all believe this. People learn in different ways in different time frames. The traditional, educational structure of learners be grouped by age and grade level, the school year is 180 days long. I lot of those structures dont honor the basic principle that people learn in different ways in different time frames. If we replace the structures, not all structure, but many of them, giving a few examples. It does not exist in lindsay. Averaging grades, grade levels. We still have learners, but the way we understand is very different. The use of technology, the use of space happening anywhere, not just in classrooms. Credentialing requirements are all traditional structures that are convenient for dolt. Funding unseat time, governance models, Effective School boards can be very powerful for advancing learning but inEffective School boards can also be a great hindrance to advancing learning in Public Education in america. The focus unlimited only which you also have to demonstrate proficiency in what we refer to as their Lifelong Learning standards. And you have to have all levels from a 5yearold to an 18yearold. Not just the academics. Its what kind of human being for our baby coming. And what is it producing . Take a look at these results. Remembering our demographic. The Graduation Rate in the low 70s to 92 . 42 of our graduates go straight to a four year university. Even though 100 of them earn free lunch and 57 of the first group to finish our performancebased system got their degree in four years. You can see the numbers for others getting degrees. Discipline is greatly disgrace because they are now invested in their own learning and engaged in learning. If you look at this, and this speaks to the culture. Healthy kids survey is taken by over 500 high schools throughout the state in a survey taken by learners and they read things like drugs on the campus or there isnt. Olene pabon connect it to the adults in my school. There is alcohol use and you can note in 2010 prior to lindsay says send come out prior to our performancebased assembly ring to mount all schools 54 and similar schools of poverty a little higher. After implementing our performancebased system and continuing to refine her performance basis in, you can see the latest data, Lindsay High School ranks at the 99th nine percentile of the state of california, essentially making it the safest drug free, bully free, alcohol free learner connected high school in the state of california. That is something we can be proud if given the demographic and work we are doing for a community. Some things people need to learn more about is what is it that youre doing. We have published a book called beyond reform and many of the people in the Education Field know very well, one of the most educational researchers and training professional writers in the country. Hundreds of publications, many people read his work and are guided by his work. They wrote the foreword to lindsays story in his work and this is what he says. The person who knows thousands of schools and hundreds of School Districts throughout this country said they transfer an assistant to one that can and should be the model for k12 education for the next several decades. Im going to close with the story of another Lindsay Wagner at the end of her journey and as we work and continue to improve our work together. This story is about a senior whose completing their High School Exit interview. Everything you must complete an interview with a Community Panel and administrators and staff to demonstrate what theyve gone through in their life, challenges they face and where theyre going in the future. I was in this panel and this learner came forward and he started his presentation by stating when i was one and a half years old, somebody wrapped me up tightly in a blanket and they threw me out for a friend. Fortunately, my father caught me and then he ran. And that is how i came into america. When i was in the fifth grade, my father walked in and he said his son, and i bought you a latter. You are dead and going to school because tomorrow you are going to the fields of me and you will work in the field alongside me and bring in money for her family. With everything he had, this young man looked at his father and he said that, im never picking up that ladder and im not going in the fields of view. Im going to stay in school and am going to be a counselor. His father laughed and said sunday he will learn what a real man does and until then i will keep the in the gar