Nobody moves on until they've got it.
Every morning, students spend two hours on math, reading, and writing at their own level. A student moves up when they show they've mastered the skill, not when the calendar turns.
What the research says. An analysis of 108 controlled studies found that students in mastery programs outperformed conventionally taught students by about half a standard deviation. That's roughly the difference between the 50th and 70th percentile. The gains were largest for students who had been struggling.
Kulik, C.-L. C., Kulik, J. A., & Bangert-Drowns, R. L. (1990). Effectiveness of mastery learning programs: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 60(2), 265–299. doi.org/10.3102/00346543060002265
How we practice. Frequent, low-stakes checks ("show me you can still do it") and practice spread over weeks rather than crammed are the two study methods cognitive scientists rate most effective.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
The same analysis found that mastery works best with a teacher running it, not when students click through alone. That's why a guide is in the room every morning and practice is never handed to an app.
Real projects, for a real audience.
Afternoons build toward a six-week project that ends with students showing their work to someone outside the school.
What the research says. In a randomized trial across five urban districts, students in project-based AP courses passed the national AP exam at rates about 8 percentage points higher than students in the same courses taught the usual way. The gap grew to 10 points in teachers' second year. Low-income students gained as much as their classmates.
Saavedra, A. R., Lock Morgan, K., Liu, Y., Garland, M. W., Rapaport, A., Hu, A., Hoepfner, D., & Haderlein, S. K. (2022). The impact of project-based learning on AP exam performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 44(4), 638–666. doi.org/10.3102/01623737221084355
And younger students too. A randomized trial in 46 Michigan schools found that third graders taught science through projects outscored their peers on science achievement. The U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse rates this study as meeting its standards without reservations, its highest rating.
Krajcik, J., Schneider, B., Miller, E. A., et al. (2023). Assessing the effect of project-based learning on science learning in elementary schools. American Educational Research Journal, 60(1), 70–102. WWC review
These trials bracket middle school, one below and one above it. We'll show you our own results the same way: measured, and published.
Writing it down is how it sticks.
Every seminar ends in writing, and big work gets defended out loud: a student, their work, and good questions.
What the research says. An analysis of studies from grades 1 through 12 found that writing about content reliably increased what students learned in science, social studies, and math.
Graham, S., Kiuhara, S. A., & MacKay, M. (2020). The effects of writing on learning in science, social studies, and mathematics: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 90(2), 179–226. doi.org/10.3102/0034654320914744
Explaining it out loud. Students asked to explain material to themselves as they learned it understood it more deeply than students who simply read it twice.
Chi, M. T. H., de Leeuw, N., Chiu, M.-H., & LaVancher, C. (1994). Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding. Cognitive Science, 18(3), 439–477. doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1803_3
One advisor, three years.
Every student keeps the same guide as their advisor from the day they start, in a group of ten to twelve.
What the research says. Across 99 studies, a warm relationship with a teacher was strongly linked to how engaged students were in school, and also linked to their achievement. The overall effects were stronger in the older grades.
Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on students' school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493–529. doi.org/10.3102/0034654311421793
Staying with the same teacher. Students who had the same teacher for a second year made small but significant test-score gains, and so did their classmates.
Hill, A. J., & Jones, D. B. (2018). A teacher who knows me: The academic benefits of repeat student–teacher matches. Economics of Education Review, 64, 1–12. ideas.repec.org