Transforming K-12 Education for Global Student Success

As a non-profit dedicated to leading education pioneers, building capacity for systems change and educating policymakers, iNACOL is refocusing its efforts to drive the transformation of K-12 education.

We have updated our mission statement to reflect the importance of transforming K-12 education toward high-quality, personalized and competency-based learning to ensure student success for all students.

With our dedicated Board of education leaders, we also released a new strategic plan that clearly sets forth articulated guidelines to drive our work in the transformation of K-12 education policy and practice.

Our New Mission: Why iNACOL Has Shifted Its Focus

To catalyze the transformation of K-12 education policy and practice
to advance powerful, personalized, learner-centered experiences
through competency-based, blended and online learning.

In 2002, iNACOL grounded its work in online learning–focusing on increasing educational opportunities and enhancing learning by providing collegial expertise and leadership in K-12 online teaching and learning. Then, iNACOL refocused its mission to encompass blended learning, ensuring all students have access to a world-class education and quality learning opportunities that prepare them for a lifetime of success. Now we recognize that future student success is reliant on shifting the focus of K-12 education transformation to true competency-based learning to support personalized learning.

The Figure below depicts how iNACOL has pushed the field since its inception in 2002.

iNACOL’s new mission drives our Theory of Action to further catalyze the transformation of K-12 education in six key ways:

• Advocacy: promote better policies and practices;
• Knowledge: research and share promising practices;
• Standards: set measures of quality for courses, schools and programs;
• Models: catalyze the awareness of the vision of next generation learning models;
• Competencies: identify what leaders and educators should know and be able to do; and
• Network Hub: convene and engage diverse educators through field-building and knowledge-sharing practices.

Our New Strategic Plan: How iNACOL Will Transform K-12 Education

iNACOL illuminates, instigates and collaborates to drive systems change. Our mission, vision and values will power our strategies to address current and future challenges and to leverage ongoing opportunities in the field.

We will:

• Address systemic challenges in K-12 education. Policy barriers exist, and we provide policy advocacy to create enabling conditions and remove policy barriers. We work to ensure high-quality educational opportunities exist for all students and foster innovation for equity.
• Transform policy to remove barriers to personalized learning and increase autonomy and flexibility, opening space for new systems of assessments and next generation accountability models.
• Change minds, accelerating personalized learning models and nudging the landscape further toward the tipping point needed for every student to have access to high-quality competency-based, blended and online learning opportunities.
• Empower the change agents—from classrooms to statehouses—to shape the public narrative, challenging misconceptions and showcasing the potential of personalized learning, building a groundswell of support for competency-based, blended and online learning.
• Continue to drive and shape the field to generate the momentum needed to transform learning at scale.
• The field needs to build educator capacity to personalize learning in new and meaningful ways. iNACOL hosts the premier conference to connect powerful innovators driving the future of learning.
• Leading education pioneers, building capacity for systems change and educating policymakers on how to transform to student-centered learning.

Our Invitation: Join iNACOL in Transforming K-12 Education

We move forward with passion and confidence, and we encourage you to join us in this important work in the following ways:

• Follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Sign up for our newsletters.
• Attend upcoming events.
• Share iNACOL’s new mission with other education leaders: iNACOL is catalyzing the transformation of #k12 #edpolicy & practice http://ow.ly/XGEcc @nacol
• Tell us how your schools/districts are advancing powerful, personalized, learner-centered experiences through competency-based, blended and online learning.
• Let us know about policy barriers that are impeding your work by contacting the iNACOL Center for Policy Advocacy.