March 20, 2024 • 31 mins
The original project in 2018 had stemmed from a grant students had won from the XQ Institute. Find out more about the nation's leading nonprofit organization.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A group of high school students.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
High school students Elizabethan High School students started a project
to research a string of unsolved murders. Their research led
to the identification of the killer.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold.
In the normal there's a pretty good chance he's still alive.
Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out
to be accurate.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
Redhead Killer profile mail Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred
and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
right handed, a Q above one hundred. Most likely a heterosexual.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
There is no profile of this killer except for the
ones the students created.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Just because some of these women no longer have people
to speak for them, it does not mean that they
deserve to not.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Be so anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Like, what if becomes after us?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Consider you're gonna kill me a year.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is Murder one oh one, Episode eleven, The XQ Institute.
I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer at KT
Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong and Andrew Arnau. In
twenty twenty, I came across a story about a group
of high school students who set out to investigate a
(01:28):
series of unsolved murders in their community. It was an
incredible story that here at KT Studios we felt needed
to be explored further. As you've heard, the original project
in twenty eighteen stemmed from a grant students had won
from the XQ Institute. Founded in twenty fifteen. XQ Institute
(01:48):
is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving schools
across the country. We thought it would be important to
showcase the incredible work XQ is doing and give listeners
a chance to figure out how they them selves can
get involved. I had a conversation with Anne McKinnon, a
senior advisor, and Carrie Schneider, who works as head of
Editorial and Publishing at XQ. You previously heard Carrie in
(02:10):
episode three.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
My name's Ann McKinnon. I work in Brooklyn. I live
in New York, but I work for XQ. I'm a
senior advisor now at XQ. I've been with XQ since
before we even had a name, and have been part
of designing and executing on a whole lot of ambitious
plans that we've had from the start, including the original Challenge,
(02:33):
which is where we met our friends from Elizabethton.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I'm Carrie Schneider. I'm head of editorial and Publishing at XQ.
I'm a former second grade teacher turned writer who gets
to cover and talk about and learn from educators and
students all across the country who are doing really cool
things to change schools in their communities.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
XQ is completely dedicated to transform high schools. Our purpose
is to help the entire country understand that high school
transformation is necessary and that it's possible, and that it's underway.
And we try to accelerate and amplify what it means
to be underway. And so as a result, we are
(03:18):
supporting schools that are doing very innovative things. We're working
on learning experiences that will transform learning and and we
have developed a design process that is community led that
brings many, many more people into the process and the
work of transforming high schools.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and I would just add to that too. I
think when we talk about transformation, you're exactly right that
it's necessary from an equity standpoint that you know, high
schools have never worked for everyone. They've always worked for
certain populations of students or some more than others. But
we really believe that from an equity standpoint, from a
(04:00):
preparing students for all the future has to offer a standpoint,
and from communities really knowing what's best for the students
that they serve, that folks can come together and get
a big vision for what they hope high schools can
be for those kids, so that they come out with
everything you remember from high school, but also a whole
lot more so they come out as generous collaborators and
(04:23):
original thinkers and critical thinkers. And in order for high
school to accomplish those things beyond just you know, good
grades on a test, learning has to look a lot
different while students are there. So when we talk about
transforming high school, it's really transforming teaching and learning, getting
educators the agency and the freedom to design lessons that
(04:45):
really engage students, giving young people a voice and shaping
what and how they learn, the really having the school
match what the needs are of young people when they
come out of high school and go onto their future.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Explain to me, like, what are the tangible things that
you try to get schools implement.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
What we did in the original competition was create materials
that helped schools think much more originally and much more
ambitiously about how to create schools where there was a
really coherent culture and sense of purpose, really meaningful and
engaged learning, youth voice and choice, community partnerships, and schools
(05:28):
that use time, space and technology in expansive ways. More recently,
we've run similar competitions in the State of Rhode Island,
all across the state of Rhode Island, with select schools
in New York City and most recently in the District
of Columbia. And what we've done in those areas is
(05:50):
take schools where there was a critical mass of people
who felt that they were ready to change their high
schools and make them more engaging and more modern. Students
would graduate ready for the future and with a sense
of what the future might hold for them, and school
communities that felt they were ready decided to engage with
us and went through a really really rigorous design process.
(06:13):
There's a lot of knowledge out there about how high
schools can and should change. It just isn't permeating necessarily
to all the places where it's most needed. So we've
made those materials and the whole process available across the
District of Columbia and in Rhode Island and have helped
people come to a greater understanding of what they can do,
(06:36):
and they are doing extraordinary things. There are two schools
in the District of Columbia that we selected as a
result of the most recent process, and one of them
is taking the concept of afrofuturism, an incredibly important intellectual
and cultural concept, and making Afrofuturism the very center of
(06:58):
the school and the theme around on which the school
is organized. The other has organized itself around the theme
of entrepreneurship and financial independence for students who graduate. So
what that means is that in both of those schools, educators,
young people and community partners are designing learning experiences, reshaping
(07:20):
the culture of the school.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
XC doesn't come in with like a cookie cutter and
say here's how you transform high school and then you
just stamp it on the dough and get the transformed
high school. I think it's much more. We create the
space for those community conversations to be held and convene
people and bring them together around guiding questions, and then
they come to their own articulation of what that might
be in their community. Whether that's afrofuturism, or whether that's
(07:46):
community partnerships with industry in the area, or whether that's
a school inside of a museum or a school that
serves housing unstable students. It really is very different depending
on the local context. But that's really the beauty of it.
It's about really giving kids a voice and what they
think they need to thrive in their communities after they finish,
(08:06):
and really looking at bigger and contextual factors too, like
workforce development. There's a school in Indianapolis that really that
whole high school was created out of knowing that the
state was going toward renewable energy and wind and solar
and a lot of things that they weren't graduating enough
high school students to fill really high tech, stem, high
paying jobs. So I think it's just a lot of
(08:28):
what we do is create the space and create the
guides for those conversations to be had so that each
community can form their own vision, and then we help
them along the way with access to experts and other
design tools and research and all of those pieces so
that they can make those visions a reality.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Which is not to say that anything goes. A design
team works through this series of questions and challenges and
does a whole lot of research on their own and
does a lot of reading, has a lot of hard conversations,
and they answer the questions that are part of the
design process that come together into a school design. And
(09:06):
then we and other experts look really closely at that
school design and give feedback and rate them for quality.
So every one of our schools, all as different as
they look, has been through a test for quality of
their idea and their quite detailed proposal. So because there
(09:27):
are certain common things that every school needs to do well,
they don't need all to be done the same way,
but they all need to be done well.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Murder one oh one. The purpose of XQ
is to connect with schools all across the country.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I grew up in a small town in Ohio with
a high school that a lot of people would say
wasn't the best place to learn. I drop out rate,
and you know a lot of opportunities that some high
schools around me had that I didn't have. And I
think one of the things that really drew me to
EXQ as a former teacher and as someone who came
up through that school system, is that high school transformation
(10:26):
can actually happen anywhere. It's not just something that happens
in big cities, or something that happens with a ton
of support from people right in the community, or just
you know, on different parts of the country. It really
is happening everywhere in small pockets, And a big part
of the work that we get to do is to
find those examples and connect with them and learn from
(10:47):
them so that we can tell others what they're doing
and inspire more more work and more changes across the
country from their examples and from their stories. So I
was really drawn to Elizabeth In for that exact small
town a lot like the one I grew up in
that proves that this kind of work can happen.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Anywhere exactly, Carrie, and I came from a town like
that myself, and I was on the original the people
who were originally looking at all the at all the proposals,
and I looked because I came from a very small
town in far upstate New York. That's a lot like Elizabethton,
in a really rural area, and so I did take
(11:27):
a I'll admit I did take an extra look at
the proposals that came in from rural areas. I was
really struck by Elizabethton. I may even have been the
person who brought Elizabethton to the attention of our final assessors,
because they they scored well in the when they in
(11:48):
their proposal. Their proposal scored well, but it was not
in the very top top ones. But there was something
just so special, so unusual about the way they put
their proposal together. It was twenty fifteen. In the fall
we issued the challenge, and the challenge was, if you're
interested in redesigning your high school, raise your hand, send
(12:11):
us a quick concept, and we'll get back to you.
So we were surprised we got seven hundred concepts. We
were thinking we would get twenty or thirty, or maybe
seventy or maybe one hundred. They came pouring in. We
got seven hundred concepts, and we screened them really quickly
for those that wouldn't be possible. You know, we were
(12:31):
only funding in the United States. We weren't funding parochial schools,
so a few got told you know, sorry, but we
don't want to disappoint you. Later, most of those concepts
got a green light from us to go forward and
create a design. So then they rapidly created a design,
mostly through early twenty sixteen. Some of them got started earlier,
(12:51):
but they came back from their holiday break and worked
really hard and put their proposals in. We got those
in twenty sixteen. They went through a very rigorous judging
process and all the selection process, and we were able
to make the announcements in September of twenty sixteen. Some
of the proposals were for brand new schools. Some of
(13:12):
the more intriguing ones were for redesigns. They were existing
schools where community people had come together and said we
want to change the way we do school. So no,
it wasn't try to win millions of dollars to build
to put a new wing on your school. It was
take this money and think about what you'd really do
(13:34):
to transform teaching and learning. Students really did the work,
and those teachers, mister Campbell and mister Hensley, opened the
door for students to do something really original, and they
they really did. They worked through every detail of our
competition process and wrote really really original and interesting answers
(14:00):
all of the questions that made up the proposal. They
were really the only ones who did that, and that
was entrepreneurial teachers who had a vision for a different,
better way of learning. They had been talking about it
theoretically among themselves for quite some time, and when one
(14:21):
of them saw our call for proposals, our original challenge. Well,
the story that I've heard is that Dustin Hensley was
looking for grants because he needed a new carpet for
the library, and he came across the XQ opportunity and
showed it to his friend Alex Campbell. And the two
(14:42):
of them had been reading and talking together about the
need to change high school for quite some time, and
they said to each other, well, is it time to
stop talking and start doing something? Should we give this
a try? And so they put this little concept in
to just raise their hands and say they wanted to
be part of it. And then when they heard back
from us that their concept had been accepted, that's when
(15:05):
they got really inspired and they said, if we really
really mean what we've been saying, we would bring students
into this process, and that's what they did. They organized,
I think it was mostly mister Campbell, organized a spring
semester course, an entire course, an elective for a group
of students around the EXQ proposal. And so they dug
(15:29):
into the history of public education, what education is supposed
to do, what high schools are supposed to do, how
you could create a high school that really met all
of their expectations. And they called it, confusingly for many people,
they called it the Bartleby School, after the character in
the Herman Melville story, the one who famously says, I
(15:50):
would prefer not to over and over again to his boss.
And so they had kind of connected this idea that
students had and that they felt was present in their students,
that they would prefer not to have a boring education,
They would prefer not to just learn out of textbooks
and take quizzes and tests. They would prefer to do more.
(16:12):
And they produced a really good school proposal. They learned
a lot about education at the same time, and so
we were really pleased with what they'd done and felt
proud of them and wanted to recognize the work that
they had done and give them some money and some
leeway to try to do more, which is exactly what
(16:32):
they did. They're very entrepreneurial bunch. They will take what's
available and turn it into gold over and over again.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, A big part of what we believe in and
what we see happening in schools across the country connects
to what we all know about what motivates and inspires
each of us when we were young and today right
following your curiosity, getting intrigued by something, all of the
stuff that like you have a hobby or you want
to learn something that you do as an adult in
(17:02):
schools that's often really stifled. So a big part of
what we mean when we say high school transformation or
what the original challenge in our ongoing work over the
years intends to do is help people create the space
for that curiosity and that passion and following interest and
learning to be actually meaningful and engaging and attached to
(17:24):
real life for young people. So I think it's really
an example of where we know what young people need.
They know what they need, but the way schools are
structured with kids in classrooms and kids following a bell
schedule just isn't conducive to that. So you have teachers
like those at Elizabethson but all over the place really
(17:46):
getting creative about the way that they organize the day
or the way that they organize classers. They teach things
in a more interdisciplinary way, or they have projects, and
that really does create the space for kids to actually
drive their own learning in a way that follows their curiosity,
their passions and lets them explore who they are, which
is ultimately what high schools can be.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, there are two things that I think are important
to bring out. One is we know that the job
of high school for high school students is to build
their identity as an adolescent. Brain science tells us that
one of the most important jobs to be done is
to build an identity, and so it's important for students
(18:28):
to have learning experiences where they discover who they are
and imagine who they might be. That's what prepares them
for adult for college and for adult lives, and routine
high school learning often doesn't let students develop identities that
are lasting, that are authentic to who they are. The
(18:49):
other is that we know that it's important for teenagers
to have caring, trusting relationships in their schools, and many
many schools and they large ones, obviously, but even some
smaller ones are pretty anonymous places for students. And one
of the features of our schools, and one of the
(19:10):
elements the design principles that we stress a lot, is
the importance of caring, trusting relationships, and organizing the school
so that adults really know students and care about them
and can help them build their identities. That's one of
the things that Elizabethan is most outstanding at doing. They
really know their students well, and they also create learning
(19:34):
experiences where students can discover themselves, discover what they can do.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Let's stop here for another quick break. Murder one, oh one?
What excuse?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Ultimate goal?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Excuse? Ultimate goal is to see transformation happening in every
high school. One of the reasons that we're doing high
school is because we think it's the hardest thing to change.
We also think it's the most important thing to change.
High schools are infinitely more complicated than K eight schools.
They have departments, they have grade levels, they do tracking,
(20:25):
they do a million things, and as a result, they
have developed some standard, routine, status quo ways of getting
the work done that have calcified the system. That's why
the typical bell system that sometimes exists in middle schools
but is absolutely the standard in high school, where the
(20:47):
day is broken up into blocks, where student learning is
divided vertically into certain subject matter areas where they have
to develop their capacities. High schools are very complicated expectations
associated with standardized testing and with being ready for college.
All of those things create deep structures in high schools
(21:09):
that are just difficult to budge. A lot of people
want to make change, but they are working within a
structure that's rigid and it's very hard to change.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I think one of the other important things and why
XQ focuses on high school, is because high school exists
right at the center of K eight and then everything
that comes after that too. So for most young people,
it's sort of the last stop before adulthood, right, and
it's not too late. As An has mentioned the science
of learning and of adolescence at that time, it's the
(21:40):
perfect time to really expose young people to new and
different experiences so that develop who they are and they
come out into the world as young adults really equipped
to thrive. Instead of having just gone through the slog
of high school and going, oh, check that box, I've
got a diplomb onto the next thing. But if you
change high school, then that puts pressure on KA to
make sure that students are coming in prepared for what
(22:03):
the new high school experience will be. And then that
puts pressure on the higher education system and the workforce
to make sure that people are coming into jobs and
careers and higher education with a whole new set of
skills and experiences, so that higher ed will have to
change to accommodate that too. We say high school as
a fallcroom for change, but really high school at the center.
(22:23):
If you focus there, then that impacts KA and higher
ed and across the system too.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
We discussed what XQ had coming up next.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So a year ago we launched a really important partnership
with Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. They're one
hundred year old organization, probably older, and their name is
the name associated with the Carnegie Unit. The Carnegie Unit
is the organizing unit for all of high school and
(22:52):
most of higher education as well. It's also known as
the credit hour, and what the Carnegie Unit did and
what it continues to do, is equate learning with the
amount of time that a student has sat in a class.
So that's why we talk about the credit hour, which
is also called the Carnegie Unit. So this partnership with
(23:14):
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching gives us an
opportunity to think about what would be a more appropriate
way to measure and a credit learning that would be
more flexible, that would measure learning as opposed to time
and a seat. And it sounds simple, but it's actually
quite complicated to make change in this area because so
(23:36):
much of our system is built around this unit that
is probably invisible to many people, called the Carnegie Unit,
but it is an assumption that is baked very deep
into the way high schools are organized. We think that
it's holding high schools back from the kinds of change
that they need to make. It really is time, it's possible,
(23:57):
and it's time for us to be measuring student life,
learning and attainment and not just how much time they've
set it in a seat learning biology or learning world history.
So there might be a learning experience where students learn
about the Harlem Renaissance, but because of the project that
(24:17):
they're doing, they would also learn a great deal about
collaboration and original thinking and research and other skills that
are not necessarily covered by the academic standards, but that
are equally important in the development of a whole human
and so we're exploring what it means to create learning
(24:39):
experiences that do all that.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
We're simultaneously supporting people as they do the work of
high school transformation and their goals and districts in the
ways that we've talked about, by creating the spaces and
providing the resources and tools for those community conversations and
focus groups, and digging into the data about how students
are doing in high school. So we're doing that, and
we're also showing people what's possible and giving them examples
(25:06):
of the work that's underway to inspire other high schools
to take up this work in their own communities. So
I think when you ask what's next for us, it's
continued work in both of those areas, supporting people doing
the work and showing people what's possible so they can
join us.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
One of the things that we see over and over
again through our work with XQ is that students really
can do anything if they're given the opportunity. And it
also helps to organize a team. It helps that they
are not necessarily working alone. That One of the things
that is special about Elizabethton is that they design projects
(25:42):
where students can put their heads together, solve problems together,
figure out a way to get things done as a
team and also as individuals, and they have a spirit
and a desire to get work done that has an
impact in the world. They bring a lot a lot
of empathy to their work, and actually most students have
(26:04):
a lot of empathy for the people in the world
around them and want to put their creativity and their
hard work to work on problems that matter. It's one
of the things that we hear from students all the
time that they want to be engaged in work that's
really relevant and that's authentic and that is not just
practice for the real world. They want to be engaging
(26:24):
with the real world right now. They did that in
twenty sixteen when they put together a proposal for a
school that really caught the attention of EXEQ, and they've
done it over and over again in Elizabethton. Actually, that's
what we gave them the grant to do that. That's
what they said they wanted to do most of all,
(26:45):
was create opportunities for students to do community projects, to
serve their community, and they have found a multitude of
ways to do that, and it's a very inclusive process.
It's all the students in that school are part of
this ff for to have a different kind of experience
in their high school years.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
One of the things that really drew me to XQ
when I was first learning about it was there all
of the technical details around high school redesign and design
principles and learn outcomes and all of those really specific
things that support educators and leaders in doing the work.
But I remember having early conversation with Anne, and the
way that Anne you broke it down to me was
(27:27):
XQ believes in the potential of young people. We're not
cynical about teenagers. We don't roll our eyes like, oh,
they're just kids. We really do believe in the potential
of every young person and believe that high school can
be a place to unlock that instead of a place
to stifle it. So I think that's something that the
Elizabethan story really illuminates, because they were able to do
(27:48):
things that adults weren't able to do, and they were
able to accomplish things that went well beyond what you
would ever think would happen in the context of learning
and at the same time pick up all of the
skills that are important coming out of high school, writing
and researching and advocating for yourself and learning and all
of that, but at the same time really grow as
(28:09):
individuals and as people. And that is an example from Elizabethton,
But that's playing out in high schools all over the country,
not just XQ schools everywhere.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
How would the listeners get involved if they want to.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, we actually hear from everyone, which is really important
because we do believe in community led work that has
a seat at everyone for everyone around the table. So
whether you're a student or a family member, or a
school board member, or a teacher, or someone who owns
a business or someone who works in a community, there's
a place for you in this work in your town.
(28:41):
And as part of this national movement, we use the
phrase rethink high School across all of social media. That's
an easy way to find us at XQ America across
all socials too. We invite everyone to find a seat
at the table with us. We do host challenges in
districts and other communities based on some of that those
conversations and really our work just continues to evolve to
(29:02):
meet the needs of people in their communities and defining
they are and how we can help. If you're interested
in learning more about XQ, you can find us on
all the socials at XQ America. You can visit our website,
which is XQ Institute dot org, or you can use
the hashtag rethink high school across all the social platforms
to find content and resources not just from us, but
(29:22):
from educators and students all over the country that are
sharing examples of the ways they're rethinking high school in
their own communities.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Murder one oh one is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker,
Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnot, and me Jeff Shane.
Additional producing by Connor Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by
Jeff Twa and Davey Cooper Wasser. Music by Vancor Music.
Murder one oh one is a production of iHeartRadio and
Katie'stue Udios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(30:04):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
This is Alex Campbell, co host of Murder one oh
one we hope you're enjoying season one. We ask that
if you know anything that could help police solve these cases,
that you contact the appropriate agencies with any information you
feel can help with their work to bring justice to
these women and their families. But we also ask that
if you feel you can help us continue to tell
(30:31):
these stories, that you reach out to us with any
of the following information. Number one, if you have any
personal experiences with these victims that could help us tell
their stories as real people. Maybe you grew up with them,
worked with them, or are even related to them. If
you can shed light on the investigations going back to
the nineteen eighties, then maybe you worked with the cases,
(30:52):
such as a police officer, or maybe you were a
witness or even a journalist, that would also be very helpful.
And finally, if you have any information on our side suspect,
maybe you grew up with him, you were in the
military with him, incarcerated with him, or maybe involved with
him through law enforcements such as his jailor guard or
parole officer. All those things can be helpful. We would
(31:12):
love to hear from any of you. You can reach
us at info at ktdshstudios dot com, or message us
through Instagram at kt Underscore Studios
A group of high school students.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
High school students Elizabethan High School students started a project
to research a string of unsolved murders. Their research led
to the identification of the killer.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question.
Speaker 4 (00:17):
Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold.
In the normal there's a pretty good chance he's still alive.
Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out
to be accurate.
Speaker 5 (00:33):
Redhead Killer profile mail Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred
and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
right handed, a Q above one hundred. Most likely a heterosexual.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
There is no profile of this killer except for the
ones the students created.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Just because some of these women no longer have people
to speak for them, it does not mean that they
deserve to not.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Be so anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Like, what if becomes after us?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Consider you're gonna kill me a year.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
This is Murder one oh one, Episode eleven, The XQ Institute.
I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer at KT
Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong and Andrew Arnau. In
twenty twenty, I came across a story about a group
of high school students who set out to investigate a
(01:28):
series of unsolved murders in their community. It was an
incredible story that here at KT Studios we felt needed
to be explored further. As you've heard, the original project
in twenty eighteen stemmed from a grant students had won
from the XQ Institute. Founded in twenty fifteen. XQ Institute
(01:48):
is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving schools
across the country. We thought it would be important to
showcase the incredible work XQ is doing and give listeners
a chance to figure out how they them selves can
get involved. I had a conversation with Anne McKinnon, a
senior advisor, and Carrie Schneider, who works as head of
Editorial and Publishing at XQ. You previously heard Carrie in
(02:10):
episode three.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
My name's Ann McKinnon. I work in Brooklyn. I live
in New York, but I work for XQ. I'm a
senior advisor now at XQ. I've been with XQ since
before we even had a name, and have been part
of designing and executing on a whole lot of ambitious
plans that we've had from the start, including the original Challenge,
(02:33):
which is where we met our friends from Elizabethton.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I'm Carrie Schneider. I'm head of editorial and Publishing at XQ.
I'm a former second grade teacher turned writer who gets
to cover and talk about and learn from educators and
students all across the country who are doing really cool
things to change schools in their communities.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
XQ is completely dedicated to transform high schools. Our purpose
is to help the entire country understand that high school
transformation is necessary and that it's possible, and that it's underway.
And we try to accelerate and amplify what it means
to be underway. And so as a result, we are
(03:18):
supporting schools that are doing very innovative things. We're working
on learning experiences that will transform learning and and we
have developed a design process that is community led that
brings many, many more people into the process and the
work of transforming high schools.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and I would just add to that too. I
think when we talk about transformation, you're exactly right that
it's necessary from an equity standpoint that you know, high
schools have never worked for everyone. They've always worked for
certain populations of students or some more than others. But
we really believe that from an equity standpoint, from a
(04:00):
preparing students for all the future has to offer a standpoint,
and from communities really knowing what's best for the students
that they serve, that folks can come together and get
a big vision for what they hope high schools can
be for those kids, so that they come out with
everything you remember from high school, but also a whole
lot more so they come out as generous collaborators and
(04:23):
original thinkers and critical thinkers. And in order for high
school to accomplish those things beyond just you know, good
grades on a test, learning has to look a lot
different while students are there. So when we talk about
transforming high school, it's really transforming teaching and learning, getting
educators the agency and the freedom to design lessons that
(04:45):
really engage students, giving young people a voice and shaping
what and how they learn, the really having the school
match what the needs are of young people when they
come out of high school and go onto their future.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Explain to me, like, what are the tangible things that
you try to get schools implement.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
What we did in the original competition was create materials
that helped schools think much more originally and much more
ambitiously about how to create schools where there was a
really coherent culture and sense of purpose, really meaningful and
engaged learning, youth voice and choice, community partnerships, and schools
(05:28):
that use time, space and technology in expansive ways. More recently,
we've run similar competitions in the State of Rhode Island,
all across the state of Rhode Island, with select schools
in New York City and most recently in the District
of Columbia. And what we've done in those areas is
(05:50):
take schools where there was a critical mass of people
who felt that they were ready to change their high
schools and make them more engaging and more modern. Students
would graduate ready for the future and with a sense
of what the future might hold for them, and school
communities that felt they were ready decided to engage with
us and went through a really really rigorous design process.
(06:13):
There's a lot of knowledge out there about how high
schools can and should change. It just isn't permeating necessarily
to all the places where it's most needed. So we've
made those materials and the whole process available across the
District of Columbia and in Rhode Island and have helped
people come to a greater understanding of what they can do,
(06:36):
and they are doing extraordinary things. There are two schools
in the District of Columbia that we selected as a
result of the most recent process, and one of them
is taking the concept of afrofuturism, an incredibly important intellectual
and cultural concept, and making Afrofuturism the very center of
(06:58):
the school and the theme around on which the school
is organized. The other has organized itself around the theme
of entrepreneurship and financial independence for students who graduate. So
what that means is that in both of those schools, educators,
young people and community partners are designing learning experiences, reshaping
(07:20):
the culture of the school.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
XC doesn't come in with like a cookie cutter and
say here's how you transform high school and then you
just stamp it on the dough and get the transformed
high school. I think it's much more. We create the
space for those community conversations to be held and convene
people and bring them together around guiding questions, and then
they come to their own articulation of what that might
be in their community. Whether that's afrofuturism, or whether that's
(07:46):
community partnerships with industry in the area, or whether that's
a school inside of a museum or a school that
serves housing unstable students. It really is very different depending
on the local context. But that's really the beauty of it.
It's about really giving kids a voice and what they
think they need to thrive in their communities after they finish,
(08:06):
and really looking at bigger and contextual factors too, like
workforce development. There's a school in Indianapolis that really that
whole high school was created out of knowing that the
state was going toward renewable energy and wind and solar
and a lot of things that they weren't graduating enough
high school students to fill really high tech, stem, high
paying jobs. So I think it's just a lot of
(08:28):
what we do is create the space and create the
guides for those conversations to be had so that each
community can form their own vision, and then we help
them along the way with access to experts and other
design tools and research and all of those pieces so
that they can make those visions a reality.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Which is not to say that anything goes. A design
team works through this series of questions and challenges and
does a whole lot of research on their own and
does a lot of reading, has a lot of hard conversations,
and they answer the questions that are part of the
design process that come together into a school design. And
(09:06):
then we and other experts look really closely at that
school design and give feedback and rate them for quality.
So every one of our schools, all as different as
they look, has been through a test for quality of
their idea and their quite detailed proposal. So because there
(09:27):
are certain common things that every school needs to do well,
they don't need all to be done the same way,
but they all need to be done well.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Murder one oh one. The purpose of XQ
is to connect with schools all across the country.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I grew up in a small town in Ohio with
a high school that a lot of people would say
wasn't the best place to learn. I drop out rate,
and you know a lot of opportunities that some high
schools around me had that I didn't have. And I
think one of the things that really drew me to
EXQ as a former teacher and as someone who came
up through that school system, is that high school transformation
(10:26):
can actually happen anywhere. It's not just something that happens
in big cities, or something that happens with a ton
of support from people right in the community, or just
you know, on different parts of the country. It really
is happening everywhere in small pockets, And a big part
of the work that we get to do is to
find those examples and connect with them and learn from
(10:47):
them so that we can tell others what they're doing
and inspire more more work and more changes across the
country from their examples and from their stories. So I
was really drawn to Elizabeth In for that exact small
town a lot like the one I grew up in
that proves that this kind of work can happen.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Anywhere exactly, Carrie, and I came from a town like
that myself, and I was on the original the people
who were originally looking at all the at all the proposals,
and I looked because I came from a very small
town in far upstate New York. That's a lot like Elizabethton,
in a really rural area, and so I did take
(11:27):
a I'll admit I did take an extra look at
the proposals that came in from rural areas. I was
really struck by Elizabethton. I may even have been the
person who brought Elizabethton to the attention of our final assessors,
because they they scored well in the when they in
(11:48):
their proposal. Their proposal scored well, but it was not
in the very top top ones. But there was something
just so special, so unusual about the way they put
their proposal together. It was twenty fifteen. In the fall
we issued the challenge, and the challenge was, if you're
interested in redesigning your high school, raise your hand, send
(12:11):
us a quick concept, and we'll get back to you.
So we were surprised we got seven hundred concepts. We
were thinking we would get twenty or thirty, or maybe
seventy or maybe one hundred. They came pouring in. We
got seven hundred concepts, and we screened them really quickly
for those that wouldn't be possible. You know, we were
(12:31):
only funding in the United States. We weren't funding parochial schools,
so a few got told you know, sorry, but we
don't want to disappoint you. Later, most of those concepts
got a green light from us to go forward and
create a design. So then they rapidly created a design,
mostly through early twenty sixteen. Some of them got started earlier,
(12:51):
but they came back from their holiday break and worked
really hard and put their proposals in. We got those
in twenty sixteen. They went through a very rigorous judging
process and all the selection process, and we were able
to make the announcements in September of twenty sixteen. Some
of the proposals were for brand new schools. Some of
(13:12):
the more intriguing ones were for redesigns. They were existing
schools where community people had come together and said we
want to change the way we do school. So no,
it wasn't try to win millions of dollars to build
to put a new wing on your school. It was
take this money and think about what you'd really do
(13:34):
to transform teaching and learning. Students really did the work,
and those teachers, mister Campbell and mister Hensley, opened the
door for students to do something really original, and they
they really did. They worked through every detail of our
competition process and wrote really really original and interesting answers
(14:00):
all of the questions that made up the proposal. They
were really the only ones who did that, and that
was entrepreneurial teachers who had a vision for a different,
better way of learning. They had been talking about it
theoretically among themselves for quite some time, and when one
(14:21):
of them saw our call for proposals, our original challenge. Well,
the story that I've heard is that Dustin Hensley was
looking for grants because he needed a new carpet for
the library, and he came across the XQ opportunity and
showed it to his friend Alex Campbell. And the two
(14:42):
of them had been reading and talking together about the
need to change high school for quite some time, and
they said to each other, well, is it time to
stop talking and start doing something? Should we give this
a try? And so they put this little concept in
to just raise their hands and say they wanted to
be part of it. And then when they heard back
from us that their concept had been accepted, that's when
(15:05):
they got really inspired and they said, if we really
really mean what we've been saying, we would bring students
into this process, and that's what they did. They organized,
I think it was mostly mister Campbell, organized a spring
semester course, an entire course, an elective for a group
of students around the EXQ proposal. And so they dug
(15:29):
into the history of public education, what education is supposed
to do, what high schools are supposed to do, how
you could create a high school that really met all
of their expectations. And they called it, confusingly for many people,
they called it the Bartleby School, after the character in
the Herman Melville story, the one who famously says, I
(15:50):
would prefer not to over and over again to his boss.
And so they had kind of connected this idea that
students had and that they felt was present in their students,
that they would prefer not to have a boring education,
They would prefer not to just learn out of textbooks
and take quizzes and tests. They would prefer to do more.
(16:12):
And they produced a really good school proposal. They learned
a lot about education at the same time, and so
we were really pleased with what they'd done and felt
proud of them and wanted to recognize the work that
they had done and give them some money and some
leeway to try to do more, which is exactly what
(16:32):
they did. They're very entrepreneurial bunch. They will take what's
available and turn it into gold over and over again.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah, A big part of what we believe in and
what we see happening in schools across the country connects
to what we all know about what motivates and inspires
each of us when we were young and today right
following your curiosity, getting intrigued by something, all of the
stuff that like you have a hobby or you want
to learn something that you do as an adult in
(17:02):
schools that's often really stifled. So a big part of
what we mean when we say high school transformation or
what the original challenge in our ongoing work over the
years intends to do is help people create the space
for that curiosity and that passion and following interest and
learning to be actually meaningful and engaging and attached to
(17:24):
real life for young people. So I think it's really
an example of where we know what young people need.
They know what they need, but the way schools are
structured with kids in classrooms and kids following a bell
schedule just isn't conducive to that. So you have teachers
like those at Elizabethson but all over the place really
(17:46):
getting creative about the way that they organize the day
or the way that they organize classers. They teach things
in a more interdisciplinary way, or they have projects, and
that really does create the space for kids to actually
drive their own learning in a way that follows their curiosity,
their passions and lets them explore who they are, which
is ultimately what high schools can be.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, there are two things that I think are important
to bring out. One is we know that the job
of high school for high school students is to build
their identity as an adolescent. Brain science tells us that
one of the most important jobs to be done is
to build an identity, and so it's important for students
(18:28):
to have learning experiences where they discover who they are
and imagine who they might be. That's what prepares them
for adult for college and for adult lives, and routine
high school learning often doesn't let students develop identities that
are lasting, that are authentic to who they are. The
(18:49):
other is that we know that it's important for teenagers
to have caring, trusting relationships in their schools, and many
many schools and they large ones, obviously, but even some
smaller ones are pretty anonymous places for students. And one
of the features of our schools, and one of the
(19:10):
elements the design principles that we stress a lot, is
the importance of caring, trusting relationships, and organizing the school
so that adults really know students and care about them
and can help them build their identities. That's one of
the things that Elizabethan is most outstanding at doing. They
really know their students well, and they also create learning
(19:34):
experiences where students can discover themselves, discover what they can do.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Let's stop here for another quick break. Murder one, oh one?
What excuse?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Ultimate goal?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Excuse? Ultimate goal is to see transformation happening in every
high school. One of the reasons that we're doing high
school is because we think it's the hardest thing to change.
We also think it's the most important thing to change.
High schools are infinitely more complicated than K eight schools.
They have departments, they have grade levels, they do tracking,
(20:25):
they do a million things, and as a result, they
have developed some standard, routine, status quo ways of getting
the work done that have calcified the system. That's why
the typical bell system that sometimes exists in middle schools
but is absolutely the standard in high school, where the
(20:47):
day is broken up into blocks, where student learning is
divided vertically into certain subject matter areas where they have
to develop their capacities. High schools are very complicated expectations
associated with standardized testing and with being ready for college.
All of those things create deep structures in high schools
(21:09):
that are just difficult to budge. A lot of people
want to make change, but they are working within a
structure that's rigid and it's very hard to change.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I think one of the other important things and why
XQ focuses on high school, is because high school exists
right at the center of K eight and then everything
that comes after that too. So for most young people,
it's sort of the last stop before adulthood, right, and
it's not too late. As An has mentioned the science
of learning and of adolescence at that time, it's the
(21:40):
perfect time to really expose young people to new and
different experiences so that develop who they are and they
come out into the world as young adults really equipped
to thrive. Instead of having just gone through the slog
of high school and going, oh, check that box, I've
got a diplomb onto the next thing. But if you
change high school, then that puts pressure on KA to
make sure that students are coming in prepared for what
(22:03):
the new high school experience will be. And then that
puts pressure on the higher education system and the workforce
to make sure that people are coming into jobs and
careers and higher education with a whole new set of
skills and experiences, so that higher ed will have to
change to accommodate that too. We say high school as
a fallcroom for change, but really high school at the center.
(22:23):
If you focus there, then that impacts KA and higher
ed and across the system too.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
We discussed what XQ had coming up next.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
So a year ago we launched a really important partnership
with Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. They're one
hundred year old organization, probably older, and their name is
the name associated with the Carnegie Unit. The Carnegie Unit
is the organizing unit for all of high school and
(22:52):
most of higher education as well. It's also known as
the credit hour, and what the Carnegie Unit did and
what it continues to do, is equate learning with the
amount of time that a student has sat in a class.
So that's why we talk about the credit hour, which
is also called the Carnegie Unit. So this partnership with
(23:14):
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching gives us an
opportunity to think about what would be a more appropriate
way to measure and a credit learning that would be
more flexible, that would measure learning as opposed to time
and a seat. And it sounds simple, but it's actually
quite complicated to make change in this area because so
(23:36):
much of our system is built around this unit that
is probably invisible to many people, called the Carnegie Unit,
but it is an assumption that is baked very deep
into the way high schools are organized. We think that
it's holding high schools back from the kinds of change
that they need to make. It really is time, it's possible,
(23:57):
and it's time for us to be measuring student life,
learning and attainment and not just how much time they've
set it in a seat learning biology or learning world history.
So there might be a learning experience where students learn
about the Harlem Renaissance, but because of the project that
(24:17):
they're doing, they would also learn a great deal about
collaboration and original thinking and research and other skills that
are not necessarily covered by the academic standards, but that
are equally important in the development of a whole human
and so we're exploring what it means to create learning
(24:39):
experiences that do all that.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
We're simultaneously supporting people as they do the work of
high school transformation and their goals and districts in the
ways that we've talked about, by creating the spaces and
providing the resources and tools for those community conversations and
focus groups, and digging into the data about how students
are doing in high school. So we're doing that, and
we're also showing people what's possible and giving them examples
(25:06):
of the work that's underway to inspire other high schools
to take up this work in their own communities. So
I think when you ask what's next for us, it's
continued work in both of those areas, supporting people doing
the work and showing people what's possible so they can
join us.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
One of the things that we see over and over
again through our work with XQ is that students really
can do anything if they're given the opportunity. And it
also helps to organize a team. It helps that they
are not necessarily working alone. That One of the things
that is special about Elizabethton is that they design projects
(25:42):
where students can put their heads together, solve problems together,
figure out a way to get things done as a
team and also as individuals, and they have a spirit
and a desire to get work done that has an
impact in the world. They bring a lot a lot
of empathy to their work, and actually most students have
(26:04):
a lot of empathy for the people in the world
around them and want to put their creativity and their
hard work to work on problems that matter. It's one
of the things that we hear from students all the
time that they want to be engaged in work that's
really relevant and that's authentic and that is not just
practice for the real world. They want to be engaging
(26:24):
with the real world right now. They did that in
twenty sixteen when they put together a proposal for a
school that really caught the attention of EXEQ, and they've
done it over and over again in Elizabethton. Actually, that's
what we gave them the grant to do that. That's
what they said they wanted to do most of all,
(26:45):
was create opportunities for students to do community projects, to
serve their community, and they have found a multitude of
ways to do that, and it's a very inclusive process.
It's all the students in that school are part of
this ff for to have a different kind of experience
in their high school years.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
One of the things that really drew me to XQ
when I was first learning about it was there all
of the technical details around high school redesign and design
principles and learn outcomes and all of those really specific
things that support educators and leaders in doing the work.
But I remember having early conversation with Anne, and the
way that Anne you broke it down to me was
(27:27):
XQ believes in the potential of young people. We're not
cynical about teenagers. We don't roll our eyes like, oh,
they're just kids. We really do believe in the potential
of every young person and believe that high school can
be a place to unlock that instead of a place
to stifle it. So I think that's something that the
Elizabethan story really illuminates, because they were able to do
(27:48):
things that adults weren't able to do, and they were
able to accomplish things that went well beyond what you
would ever think would happen in the context of learning
and at the same time pick up all of the
skills that are important coming out of high school, writing
and researching and advocating for yourself and learning and all
of that, but at the same time really grow as
(28:09):
individuals and as people. And that is an example from Elizabethton,
But that's playing out in high schools all over the country,
not just XQ schools everywhere.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
How would the listeners get involved if they want to.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, we actually hear from everyone, which is really important
because we do believe in community led work that has
a seat at everyone for everyone around the table. So
whether you're a student or a family member, or a
school board member, or a teacher, or someone who owns
a business or someone who works in a community, there's
a place for you in this work in your town.
(28:41):
And as part of this national movement, we use the
phrase rethink high School across all of social media. That's
an easy way to find us at XQ America across
all socials too. We invite everyone to find a seat
at the table with us. We do host challenges in
districts and other communities based on some of that those
conversations and really our work just continues to evolve to
(29:02):
meet the needs of people in their communities and defining
they are and how we can help. If you're interested
in learning more about XQ, you can find us on
all the socials at XQ America. You can visit our website,
which is XQ Institute dot org, or you can use
the hashtag rethink high school across all the social platforms
to find content and resources not just from us, but
(29:22):
from educators and students all over the country that are
sharing examples of the ways they're rethinking high school in
their own communities.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Murder one oh one is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker,
Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnot, and me Jeff Shane.
Additional producing by Connor Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by
Jeff Twa and Davey Cooper Wasser. Music by Vancor Music.
Murder one oh one is a production of iHeartRadio and
Katie'stue Udios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
(30:04):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
This is Alex Campbell, co host of Murder one oh
one we hope you're enjoying season one. We ask that
if you know anything that could help police solve these cases,
that you contact the appropriate agencies with any information you
feel can help with their work to bring justice to
these women and their families. But we also ask that
if you feel you can help us continue to tell
(30:31):
these stories, that you reach out to us with any
of the following information. Number one, if you have any
personal experiences with these victims that could help us tell
their stories as real people. Maybe you grew up with them,
worked with them, or are even related to them. If
you can shed light on the investigations going back to
the nineteen eighties, then maybe you worked with the cases,
(30:52):
such as a police officer, or maybe you were a
witness or even a journalist, that would also be very helpful.
And finally, if you have any information on our side suspect,
maybe you grew up with him, you were in the
military with him, incarcerated with him, or maybe involved with
him through law enforcements such as his jailor guard or
parole officer. All those things can be helpful. We would
(31:12):
love to hear from any of you. You can reach
us at info at ktdshstudios dot com, or message us
through Instagram at kt Underscore Studios
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