A Test-Before-You-Scale Strategy for Public School Systems
Over the past decade, more than 20 states and hundreds of districts have created Portraits of a Graduate. Communities have identified the competencies students need to thrive, including collaboration, adaptability, problem-solving, and agency.
And then many systems stop.
The portrait goes on the website. It hangs in classrooms. It appears in strategic plans. But the learning model remains largely unchanged.
A portrait declares what a system values – the outcomes for graduates. The design of the learning system reveals whether it means what it says.
When schedules fragment learning into isolated blocks and grading systems reward compliance over mastery, design contradicts vision.
This is not a vision problem. It is a design problem.
As George Philhower of Indiana’s Microschool Collaborative reminds leaders, “Nearly all the rules we play by in education today were made up once. None of these are laws of nature.” They were designed for a different time. The real question is whether we are willing to redesign them for today’s students.
For leaders and teachers who helped build the portrait, that gap can feel exhausting. You’ve watched students engage deeply in learning, only to see that engagement undermined by grading policies, schedule constraints, or legacy systems.
You are not failing. The infrastructure is.
Common challenges include:
- Learning models that do not integrate the portrait outcomes
- Curriculum, instruction, and assessment that do not reflect the portrait
- Signals such as transcripts or report cards that fail to include the portrait outcomes
- Learning ecosystems that don’t adapt toa district’s design principles
Research and Development Is Not a Pilot
Closing the gap between vision and practice does not happen through mandate. It happens through disciplined R&D.
A pilot tests an idea. R&D tests a system shift. A pilot asks, “Does this unit work?”
R&D asks, “What must change in grading, scheduling, staffing, and policy for this to work at scale?”
As Dr. Erin Whalen of Da Vinci Schools notes, pilots are safe; R&D is courageous. A pilot tweaks instruction. R&D interrogates transcripts, funding models, staffing structures, accountability systems, and the unspoken rules that quietly govern schools.
Most districts use pilots. Few design R&D. That’s why transformation efforts stall. Pilots don’t typically surface the systemic barriers that prevent scale.
Disciplined R&D means:
- Naming a specific system constraint you are testing
- Creating a protected space to test it with students who reflect the district’s diversity
- Documenting what works, what breaks, and what adults need to sustain it
- Using what you learn to inform broader redesign
Calling the work R&D also lowers political risk, signaling disciplined experimentation rather than reckless change. Leaders can say, “We are learning before we scale.”
Matching the Container to the Complexity
Not every redesign requires the same container. The scale of your test should match the complexity of what you’re trying to learn.
WhereBest for TestingWhat it RevealsExample1–2 ClassroomsGrading shifts, feedback cycles, project-based unitsWhether the practice works within existing structuresTwo teachers pilot mastery-based grading, document what students and families need to understand itSmall Cohort (3–4 teachers, 60–100 students within an existing school)Interdisciplinary collaboration, flexible grouping, shared planningWhat teachers need to collaborate across content, and how students respond to sustained relationshipsA cohort tests project-based learning, integrating math, science, and humanities; it documents the planning time requiredMicroschool (60–150 students, often with a distinct identity or protected policy space) Competency-based progression, policy waivers, community partnerships, multi-system shiftsHow infrastructure must change when scheduling, grading, and staffing shift simultaneouslyDistrict microschool tests competency-based progression with flexible scheduling and performance assessment; informs system-wide shifts
The difference is not just size. It is autonomy and policy flexibility.
If you’re testing a rubric or learning progression, don’t build a microschool. If you’re testing whether mastery can replace seat time, two classrooms won’t answer the question.
Sometimes, R&D happens at multiple scales simultaneously. Cheney Public Schools, for example, is exploring how a system can be “quality, rigid, and time flexible” through competency pathways at the secondary level—a district-wide question that requires testing across classrooms, cohorts, and dedicated microschool environments to understand what changes at each level of infrastructure.
When Microschools Make Sense
Microschools are not boutique programs. When embedded intentionally within districts, they function as infrastructure-level R&D, places where multiple structural elements can shift at once.
Microschools make sense when you are testing:
- Policy flexibility around seat time or transcripts
- Competency-based progression that disrupts traditional pacing
- Community-integrated, place-based, or real world learning
- Simultaneous redesign of scheduling, grading, and staffing
Equity is not optional in this work. If a district microschool serves only self-directed, high-performing students, it is not innovation. It is tracking with better branding.
Whalen is direct: “A district microschool should not be an escape hatch for already thriving students. If it doesn’t reflect your full demographic reality, it’s not innovation, it’s insulation.”
For learning to scale, the microschool must reflect the district’s demographics and operate within the same funding, transportation, and accountability systems.
Same district. Same budget. Different design.
What This Looks Like in Practice
These are not case studies. They are intentional testing of a system.
EDGE in Liberty Public Schools (Missouri)
Constraint tested: Can competency-based progression operate within traditional public accountability and funding structures?
Leaders tested competency-based progression and used what they learned about scheduling, facilitation, and assessment design to inform shifts in the comprehensive high school.
Concord Community Schools (Michigan)
Constraint tested: Can team-based teaching create the conditions for teacher-led R&D and horizontal scaling in a small district?
Superintendent Rebecca Hutchinson leverages team-based teaching as an R&D structure, increasing collective efficacy and using teams to prototype and scale solutions across the district.
Tacoma Public Schools (Washington)
Constraint tested: Can CTE pathways operate as stackable, personalized progressions within comprehensive schools, serving all students rather than functioning as a separate track?
The district redesigned Career & Technical Education into open-access Career & College Readiness pathways with introductory, concentrator, and capstone experiences integrated with core academics.
WIN Academy, a microschool in Cheney Public Schools (Washington)
Constraint tested: How do schedules, community structures, and interdisciplinary design work together in a blended learning environment to support both flexibility and belonging?
The microschool iterates on blended learning structures to understand how the student community can coexist with time-flexible learning.
Issaquah School District (Washington)
Constraint tested: Are barriers to change structural or cultural?
When students access the same buses, funding, and accountability systems, what remains is adult belief and practice.
Creative Minds Lab (Wichita, Kansas)
Constraint tested: Can community-integrated, flexible pacing operate inside traditional district infrastructure?
The multi-aged model, co-located in a community-centered space, tests whether flexibility and public systems can coexist.
Readiness Matters More Than Urgency
R&D is more demanding than a pilot because the level of uncertainty is higher. Before launching, assess readiness.
General Readiness:
- Leadership stability – Can you protect the work for at least two years?
- Teacher readiness – Do you have volunteers eager to co-design?
- Clarity of problem – Can you clearly name the system constraint you’re testing?
- Documentation plan – How will learning be captured and shared?
- Engagement – Do you have students and families willing to participate?
Additional Readiness for Microschools:
- Policy flexibility – Do you have waiver authority or board support?
- Budget clarity – Is funding sustainable?
- Facility access – Can you secure low-cost or co-located space?
- Equity design – Will enrollment reflect district demographics?
Balance urgency with capacity. Failed experiments make future redesign harder to justify. If the conditions are not in place, build readiness first.
The Path Forward
Start with two classrooms testing a grading shift.
Start with a cohort piloting interdisciplinary work.
Start with a microschool if the redesign requires protected policy space and infrastructure testing.
The question is not whether to innovate. It is what constraint you are testing, in what context, and at what scale. Choose your scale. Design the test. Document what you learn. Feed it back into the system.
A portrait names the promise. An R&D strategy for design makes it real.
