{"id":4720,"date":"2017-12-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/kettle-moraine-how-they-got-here-and-where-they-are-going\/"},"modified":"2020-07-15T13:19:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-15T17:19:20","slug":"kettle-moraine-how-they-got-here-and-where-they-are-going","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/kettle-moraine-how-they-got-here-and-where-they-are-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Kettle Moraine: How They Got Here and Where They Are Going"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Image from the Kettle Moraine website<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article is part of a series on personalized, proficiency-based education in Wisconsin and the second in a ten-part series on Kettle Moraine. Please read the first post<\/a> on Kettle Moraine before continuing to read this post, as it will prepare you to fully take advantage of the ideas and resources shared in this series.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Before they turned to personalized learning, Kettle Moraine School District (KM) was already considered a high performing school district, with 80-90 percent of students going on to post-secondary education and training and numerous recognitions of excellence every year. Superintendent Patricia DeKlotz explained, \u201cHow we think of success and high performance is based on what we measure. Eighty percent of our students go on to college, but only 45 percent of those students complete post-secondary. We want to measure ourselves based on things that really count for our students. We know we can do better. We know we can create more relevance for our students and their futures. \u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, some people interpreted the suggestion that there should be change as an indication that there was a problem. DeKlotz explained, \u201cWhen we first started talking about personalization, some people didn\u2019t understand why. They saw it as we aren\u2019t good enough. But that wasn\u2019t the case at all. We are changing because we can do better, not that we are failing. This is important because trust between a district and the community, between schools and parents, begins with the belief that we are doing the very best for students. It\u2019s important to begin from a position of strength if you can.\u201d Assistant Superintendent Theresa Ewald added, \u201cMany of the traditional measures of success used are those that were set in a time when few attended college, when knowledge was less accessible to all. The context has changed, so must the measures of success.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There was another driving force: finances. Wisconsin, like other states, hasn\u2019t been keeping up with increases in inflation, and the cost pressures are significant on districts. KM had had revenue limits in place since 1993. DeKlotz described that previous response to the tightening fiscal situation was to try to cut programs and drop things from the budget. Her background in business and familiarity with the <\/span>Kaizan<\/span><\/a> approach encouraged her to find another way. As did meeting <\/span>Richard DeLorenzo<\/span><\/a>, one of the architects of the <\/span>Chugach<\/span><\/a> performance-based model at a <\/span>MCREL <\/span><\/a>meeting. The dual drivers of costs and excellence catalyzed KM to look for more cost-effective ways of organizing education. Their answer was personalizing education to create more efficiency and to be much more effective for preparing their students for college, careers, and all they might encounter in life. <\/span><\/p>\n

The shift to personalized learning and the district\u2019s ability to sustain the transformation is based on four major processes:<\/span><\/p>\n