Episode 21: Scott Looney on the Mastery Transcript

The Crush

http://www.crushpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Scott-Looney.mp3

The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is a group of over 150 private schools that have coalesced around an idea that our current model of grading students is not only outdated, but harmful to their development. Scott Looney is the Head of School at the Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, and is the driving force behind the Mastery Transcript, a brand-new way to consider how we assess student achievements in high school.

We live in an age of disruption, and ripe for consideration in our collective educational consciousness is the notion of grades as we know them. Scott Looney and the member schools of this consortium are interested in assessing students based on mastery within different areas of learning that include the development of character, not just subject area knowledge.

While it won’t be in operation for between 6 to 8 years, you can click here to see a few examples of what the MTC is hoping will become reality. A student’s achievements are presented in an online format with clickable elements, allowing the viewer to drill down all the way to individual assignments that contributed to the result you see on the transcript, should you so desire.

Mr. Looney is committed to make sure that admissions counselors with few precious moments to spare in the review of hundreds and hundreds of files won’t have to spend any more than 2 minutes reading Mastery Transcripts. And while those in admissions may have functional concerns about how this fits into the logistics of reading applications, there have been others raised about the impact this is liable to have on college admission outcomes for students at environments with fewer student support resources than Mastery Consortium schools.

I spoke with Mr. Looney during the annual NACAC conference in Boston in September, 2017.

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More news about the Mastery Transcript

A Plan to Kill High School Transcripts…and Transform College Admissions (Inside Higher Ed)

Why Getting Rid of Grades Would Help Rich Kids and Hurt Poor Ones (Washington Post)

Independent Schools Come together to Build a New High School Transcript (National Association of Independent Schools)

Mastery Transcript Consortium: Big Idea to Upend College Admissions Process (Medium)

What if Your High School Transcript Didn’t Include Grades? (Boston Globe)

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6:13 – Interview begins

7:00 – MTC origin story

11:05 – What’s the big deal with these transcripts?

14:00 – How should admissions counselors read this?

15:10 – What problems does this seek to solve?

21:40 – What feedback have you gotten from colleges?

26:45 – Why the MTC is only independent schools

29:36 – Is this related to the Coalition Application?

33:58 – Role of teachers in the MT’s development

36:27 – How could the adoption of the MT work in public schools?

38:53 – What has the criticism been?

45:10 – How might the MT impact the role of standardized tests in admissions?

49:22 – Is the MT meritocratic?

51:32 – What do kids think about this?

54:25 – Final thoughts

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