Equity, social justice, Social-Emotional Learning, mental health, and a rigorous and relevant instructional program for all students are recent but critical issues that schools today are required to address. Meanwhile, the demands of the past have not gone away. The brick-and-mortar school model of the last century with the bell schedule, boundaries, rules, regulations, certifications, tenures, contracts, and a hyper-focus on meeting proficiency on high-stakes tests continue to demand attention. While the demands continue to compound, a silver lining is emerging through the hardships brought on by COVID. It has created a tipping point for many educators, policy makers, business leaders, and parents around the immediate need to transform our education system. The pandemic has also taught us that change is possible in the ways we had not imagined even one year ago.

Dr. Bill Daggett will share emerging solutions to these challenges. He is co-chairing a National Commission named “Learning 2025: National Commission on Student-centered, Equity-focused Education” with AASA, in cooperation with several other national organizations including NSBA, CCSSO, NASSP, and NESPA. The National Commission’s charge will be to identify and document the cognitive and non-cognitive skills, knowledge, behaviors, and dispositions that high school graduates will need to master to prepare for the digital age workplace as citizens of a global community. Dr. Daggett will share with participating schools and districts the evidence-based practices that have been found to be most effective at addressing the multiple challenges and demands that they face. He will explain how those practices begin by putting a stake in the ground for the class of 2025 by identifying what graduating seniors will need to know, do, and how to behave to be successful in a world that is being transformed rapidly by advancing technologies such as AI. Education leaders will learn how to develop and, ultimately, be able to implement Boardroom-to-Classroom policies and practices that will transform schools and classrooms to best prepare all students for their future and not our past.