Since 2021, Nevada educators, learners, families, businesses, and community members have been coming together to reimagine school environments and experiences, and create an action plan for how to get there. This community vision became the Portrait of a Nevada Learner. With chronic absenteeism rates at 40% and a painfully low teacher retention, students are more disengaged and disconnected from school than ever.
The Nevada Department of Education’s Future of Learning Network consists of a wide range of organizations and individuals who believe in a modernized education system that integrates both academic knowledge and the durable skills that put learning into meaningful action.
“Nevada has the opportunity to lead nationally at this moment in time,” said Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction Jhone Ebert. “There are very few states that have their department of education, their superintendents, and the business community ready and willing to make the shift in how we assess our students, how students demonstrate their competencies, and to make sure that they’re successful beyond the K-12 environment.”
The network convened for its NOW of Learning Summit on September 12, bringing together over 200 community members – including young people, community leaders, policymakers, and educators (teachers and Superintendents) from across the state who are actively testing its implementation in classrooms and school communities.
Timothy Knowles, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, led a keynote presentation about integrating both academic knowledge and durable skills into assessment and accountability. Panel discussions were also held with several community leaders:
--Paul Johnson, Chief Financial Officer for the White Pine County School District and member of the Commission on School Funding
--Sean Parker, Executive Director of Teach for America Nevada and member of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education
--Adam Young, Superintendent of the White Pine County School District and President of the Nevada Association of School Superintendents
--Myeong Potter, Vice President of Human Resources at AREA15
--Lauri Perdue, Vice Chair of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and National Workforce Development Director at the University of Phoenix
--Adrina Ramos-King, Strategic Initiatives Manager at Workforce Connections
“We’ve been doing this for over 150 years,” said Timothy Knowles,. “We need a transcript that actually captures the knowledge and skills that young people have developed over their K-12 experience.”
Knowles described the future of education as requiring “a new architecture that moves rigorous, engaged, and experiential learning from the margins to the mainstream.”
“We need to center the voices of young people, durable skills, and really start to unravel the policies that are in the way of that being a central part of the system,” said Jeanine Collins, Chief Innovation Officer at edXtraordinary.
“We have so much feedback around possibilities, ideas, opportunities to build the network, to connect work that is happening around our state in service of building the coalition that is bringing the principles of the portrait to life,” said Collins.
The New American Transcript Starts in Nevada
The Portrait is intentionally designed to incorporate feedback from the community, especially from young people as the “customers” of our education systems. The Portrait of a Nevada Learner was not only shaped by input from learners, it was co-designed alongside them.
“Ensuring that youth voice is at every step of the way is exceptionally important,” said Sebastian Rios, a senior at Leadership Academy of Nevada, an online charter school that serves students throughout the state. “At the end of the day, the changes that we make today are not going to affect me, it’s going to affect the next 10, 20, or 30 years of students that are going to come through those doors at those schools. Involving youth is forward-thinking.”
Rios serves on the Nevada Youth Legislature, a state sponsored program where each of the 21 state senators appoints a member of the youth community, from within their district, to represent youth in our state government. Rios has been involved with the Portrait from the start, by participating in Portrait Perspective Panels and being a member of the Youth Empowerment Cohort.
To advance the work of the Future of Learning Network and begin to implement the vision of the portrait, over 100 organizations have joined the network as Portrait Partners, including Workforce Connections, UNLV College of Education, Nevada State College, the Public Education Foundation, Nevada PTA, Desert Research Institute, and many more. Additionally, educators from Churchill, Clark, Douglas, Ely, Lincoln, Mineral, Nye, Washoe, White Pine Counties, as well as the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority and the Nevada Association of School Superintendents are exploring pathways to revamp approaches to teaching and learning, aligned to the portrait.
“What’s happening in Nevada is that there’s a recognition that if we’re truly going to transform learning for young people and accelerate our cause, you can’t do that singularly,” said Knowles. “You need business, parents, and community. We all know that intuitively, but what I love about what’s happening in Nevada is that it’s actually manifesting.”
“This work will only progress if it is developed, tested, and shaped by our community,” said Jeanine Collins, chief innovation officer of ed.Xtraordinary. “The Portrait of a Nevada Learner is not a directive being handed to learners and educators – it’s a roadmap that is being created alongside them.”
This viable opportunity for change is being recognized and supported in the community at large. Since 2023, 20 different organizations have designed various Community Learning Projects. The goal of this initiative is to expand educational awareness and opportunities by partnering with local businesses, civic organizations, and cultural institutions to demonstrate how community expertise can help learners bring their academic knowledge to life in real-world settings.
Each partnership embodied the Portrait’s core values of empowerment, connection, and impact, setting the stage for future collaborations that continue to bridge the gap between academic theory and practical application through critical skills.
“What we’re doing in the education system can have a positive or a negative effect on economic diversity in our community,” said Lauri Perdue, National Workforce Director at the University of Phoenix and Vice-Chair at the LVGEA. “Right now we’re feeling those effects, of not having a skilled workforce for companies to see us as a viable option to move their businesses here.”
Perdue further notes, this is about changing the culture in our community, so that we’re providing the best experiences in education for our children, and setting them up for success after K-12. Similarly, the team at Workforce Connections stresses the needs of the modern workplace have changed dramatically, and it’s time for Nevada to keep up.
“With the important durable skills in the Portrait of a Nevada Learner, students will have a more robust critical thinking ability, a more robust ability to thrive in environments that matter,” said Adrina Ramos-King, Strategic Initiatives Manager at Workforce Connections. “It’s not always what you know, it’s what you can do with what you know.”
The current system focuses on capturing grades, test scores, and attendance rates. The Portrait shifts the paradigm to competency-based learning, tracking academic knowledge concurrently with the ability to communicate, think critically and creatively, to demonstrate work ethic and persistence–the skills that bridge the gap between academic theory and practical application. These are skills that must be more legible not just for employers, but also to enrich the lives of learners, their families, and their communities.
“We’ve been talking about the problems in the education system in Southern Nevada ever since I’ve been alive,” said Perdue. “At some point we have to stop talking about the problems and we’ve got to find solutions. This group of people brought that to the table today.”
Outside the ballroom at the Golden Nugget, stands a “Possibili-Tree”. An art installation covered in silver metallic paper and lights. Attendees were asked to write down what is possible for our state’s education system and hang it on the tree. For Nevada, the change has already begun. As Collins said, “We are not a community of problems. We are a community of possibilities.”
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