You may have seen some information recently attempting to connect Eastern Hancock’s Key Learning Outcomes (KLOs) with a decades-old educational movement called “Outcome-Based Education.”
They are not the same thing.
The purpose of KLOs at Eastern Hancock is actually pretty simple: we want to make student learning more transparent. We want students to understand what they’re learning and why it matters. We want teachers to have a clear picture of where students are doing well and where they may need more support. And we want that information to help us work together, learn from one another, and keep getting better.
As a parent, we want you to eventually be able to get clear answers to two questions in every class:
What should my student know and be able to do?
To what extent can my student actually do those things?
That sounds simple. Getting there isn’t.
Teachers have always had a lot of autonomy in determining what goes into a grade—not just at Eastern Hancock, but in schools everywhere. Think back to when you were in school. An “A” in one teacher’s class didn’t necessarily mean the same thing as an “A” in another. A grade might have included some combination of tests, homework, projects, participation, extra credit, effort, late work, or other factors.
There are good things about teacher autonomy, and we don’t want to lose that. But it can also mean that a single letter grade doesn’t always clearly tell a student or parent what the student has actually learned.
That’s where KLOs come in.
Our teachers are identifying the most important academic concepts and skills students should learn in each class and are developing ways to determine how well students have learned them. Instead of a grade being the only information you receive, our goal is to eventually be able to say, “Here are the things your student was expected to learn, and here is where they are with each one.”
That transparency is the goal.
This is hard work, and it is very much a work in progress. Many of our teachers teach multiple subjects or courses, each with its own standards and expectations. Developing meaningful KLOs, making sure they represent the right learning, and finding good ways for students to demonstrate that learning takes time. We aren’t ready to do this perfectly across the board yet.
For now, in most classes, grades are still being calculated much as they always have been. Some teachers have begun aligning grades more closely with KLOs - and a few of our teachers actually started doing this years ago. Over time, as we get better at clearly identifying and communicating learning, we will continue talking about whether and how grades should better reflect that learning.
But changing grades isn’t the starting point. Learning is.
And that’s also why it is important not to confuse our KLO work with the historical “Outcome-Based Education”.
KLOs are not designed to prescribe students’ beliefs, attitudes, or values. In fact, in an important way, our work does the opposite of what critics of that movement were concerned about: we’re trying to make what happens in our classrooms more visible, more specific, and more transparent to families.
We want you to know what we’re asking your child to learn. We want you to know whether they are learning it. And when they aren’t there yet, we want to know that too, so we can help.
Ultimately, this is about making sure students develop the academic knowledge and skills they need before moving on to whatever comes next—whether that’s the next grade level, higher education, training, or a career.
That’s the purpose of KLOs.
Know what students should learn. Know whether they’re learning it. And help them when they’re not there yet.
We know you may have questions, and we welcome them. If you’d like to learn more about KLOs, please reach out to your child’s principal.