For over a century, the American education system has compromised its promise by measuring what is easy to score. Trapped in an industrial-era paradigm of end-of-year stock taking, schools are overwhelmingly ‘data rich, information poor’, drowning in metrics while starved for actionable instructional insight.
But what if the most profound promise of multimodal artificial intelligence is fundamentally redesigning the architecture of what processes we focus upon when we measure human potential?
We’ve been asking: How might we innovate how we measure? A video launched today reflects some of what we’ve been learning.
Assessments are not neutral mirrors; they are powerful signals that shape our pedagogical priorities, ultimately deciding what is taught, learned, and valued in our classrooms. Today, emerging breakthroughs offer an unprecedented opportunity to shatter traditional testing constraints. To explore this frontier, the Advancing Multimodal AI, Measurement, and Assessment Innovation webinar series is gathering an impressive slate of leaders.
As early literacy expert Sunil Gunderia, of Mindset CoPilot, observes, “The most powerful thing an assessment can do isn’t tell us where a student is; it’s showing a teacher exactly what to do tomorrow.”
Here’s why we are excited to learn from Brandee Tate, Pamela Cantor, M.D., Laura Slover, and Jack Bucklely.
Brandee Tate: Measuring the Soil, Cultivating the Ecosystem
To accurately gauge the health of a plant, you cannot simply measure its leaves; you must also test the nutrients in its soil, Brandee Tate, of the Gates Foundation, observes. We cannot expect students to thrive if our measurement systems remain blind to the conditions in which they learn. The transition to holistic education requires expanding our metrics beyond the isolated, easily quantifiable testing of the individual student to capture the complex, living ecosystem of the school itself. As Tate suggests, moving away from redundant time-intensive testing requires measuring “not only the student but the soil”. Cultivating these conditions fuels long-term postsecondary success and lifelong economic mobility.
Expanding these metrics exposes a formidable gap. Hindered by siloed data and misaligned incentives, educators drown in data, starved for the next-day instructional clarity that drives student agency. By dismantling silos and translating fragmented data into user-friendly insights, we might provide teachers with the instructional clarity they urgently need. Establishing a cohesive data infrastructure bridges the chasm between visionary measurement and real-world impact, equipping every learner to navigate a dynamic future.
Pamela Cantor M.D.: The Science of Possibility
What if we approached human development with the same precision as modern medicine, treating individual variation not as a statistical flaw, but as a vital biological feature?
For over a century, measurement has been trapped in an industrial “culture of selection” relying on disproven myths like the bell curve observes Pamela Cantor, M.D. of the Human Potential L.A.B. By treating variation as an error to be erased, reductive group averages flatten human complexity and obscure dynamic student trajectories. We cannot genuinely cultivate a person if our primary metrics are fundamentally blind to who they actually are. Dr. Cantor reminds us that potential is neither predetermined nor scarce. To unlock it, we must urgently pivot toward a “culture of cultivation” rooted in the Science of Human Possibility. This shift demands we confront education’s greatest historical blind spots: individual biological variation and context dependency.
For decades, capturing this complex reality at scale seemed an insurmountable hurdle. Today, however, the intersection of multimodal AI and learning science finally gives us the instrumentation to observe the complex, biological reality of skill development in action. By accurately measuring human change over time and dynamically capturing the critical fit between a learner and their unique context, these tools transform assessment from a blunt sorting mechanism into a powerful engine for human thriving.
Laura Slover: A Robust Ontology of Durable Skills
Laura Slover (Managing Director, Skills for the Future at ETS) argues we must expand our vision of success beyond the K-12 classroom to include a robust taxonomy of durable skills. Certifying rote achievement is insufficient; we must prioritize complex competencies (like collaboration, communication and persistence) through next-generation, multimodal assessments. Our assessments must validate learning that occurs in authentic contexts, recognizing that durable skills forged outside the traditional school day matter just as much as those learned at a desk. Capturing multidimensional data transforms static evaluation into actionable insight. Armed with this clarity, educators can build on student strengths to foster resilient agency.
Jack Buckley: Stealth Assessment
In his work on Game-Based Assessment (GBA) at Roblox, Jack Buckley argues that measuring complex skills like adaptability and systems thinking requires moving beyond outdated testing methods. True GBA isn’t just about adding leaderboards to dull tasks; it embeds assessments within immersive, real-world digital environments to evaluate the durable skills students actually need. Instead of interrupting the learning process with a traditional test, GBA utilizes stealth assessment. This involves using sophisticated backend telemetry to continuously track a student’s choices, clicks, and interactions. By capturing this unobtrusive data, educators gain a clear view of a learner’s cognitive process and how they navigate failure. This shifts the focus from a sanitized final score to authentically tracking real-time learning dynamics.
Conclusion
The AI era offers an unprecedented window to build an assessment ecosystem rooted in human possibility. To measure what matters, we must securely connect data silos through interoperability, elevate the school ecosystem, and treat individual variation as the ultimate signal. But as we embrace these multimodal technologies to evaluate durable skills, we must hold our tools to a higher standard—ensuring they remain firmly grounded in the learning sciences and relentlessly accountable to the educators and children at the center.
As Michelle Barrett of Edmentum observes, “This isn’t about abandoning academic rigor. It’s about expanding what we recognize as learning.” Ultimately, an assessment’s true value lies in providing educators with insights to cultivate agency tomorrow. As Andy Calkins of LEAP Innovations emphasizes, “These strategies actually spur student agency… kids aren’t asking, ‘Will it be on the test?’ They are discovering intrinsic reasons to learn instead.” As Kristen DiCerbo challenges us: “When we innovate what we measure, we change what is possible.” We finally have the technology to see the whole learner; now we must have the courage to measure what truly matters.
