Dive Brief:
- East Side Community High School in Manhattan is among 28 schools in New York state permitted to use projects, instead of state-mandated standardized tests, as the standard for graduation.
- Seniors must complete projects in multiple areas — including science, math, English, and history — to be evaluated by at least two teachers and a panel of educators.
- The school enrolls students in grades six through 12, and students often begin preparing for their graduation presentations years in advance, practicing similar small-scale projects and giving frequent presentations.
Dive Insight:
In a school landscape generally characterized by an increasing focus on standardized testing, the approach of East Side and the other schools in the New York Performance Standards Consortium is strikingly different. Advocates say that project-based assessments do a better job of actually preparing students for scenarios they’d face in life outside the classroom.
“Especially for kids who are used to feeling marginalized, to be able to walk into a college and speak up, to tell an adult what you think and why, creates a sense of entitlement, an empowerment, they didn’t have before,” Mark Federman, East Side’s principal, told Education Week. “And that carries over to things like getting what you need at the housing office. Getting your work noticed. They can advocate for themselves.”
And there’s some evidence that their take may work. East Side graduates 82% of its students within four years, compared with a statewide average of 62%, and schools in the consortium have higher reenrollment rates from year to year.