Michael HornThought leader creating a world where all individuals can build passions & fulfill their human potential. Author of the national bestseller Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career

Redefining High School: Seat Time Is Dead #substack #shorts

Name: Redefining High School: Seat Time Is Dead #substack #shorts
Uploaded: 2025-09-22T15:27:08+00:00
Duration: 1 min 47 s
Channel: Michael Horn
Description: In this YouTube short, the host introduces a segment titled “The Race to Redefine the High School Learning Experience is On,” which spotlights the Future…

22 Sept 2025 · 2 min

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1:47

In this YouTube short, the host introduces a segment titled “The Race to Redefine the High School Learning Experience is On,” which spotlights the Future of High School Network—a coalition of schools led by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The network is working to replace traditional seat‑time requirements with competency‑based models, enabling richer, work‑based learning opportunities. Michael Horn discusses the significance of this shift, noting the historical move away from seat‑time, the renewed focus on high‑school redesign (building on earlier Gates Foundation efforts), and the concrete example of a Houston district partnering with a local hospital to provide career‑connected learning. Horn emphasizes that such partnerships illustrate how competency‑based education can integrate real‑world work experiences, aligning with broader calls for career‑connected learning for all students.

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The Race to Redefine the High School Learning Experience is On is the title. And this is one that covers the efforts of the Future of High School Network, which is a network of schools led by the Carnegie foundation for the Advancement of Teaching that are transforming how we do high school in America. And it's part of sort of a larger effort by the organization to move away from our education system based on seat time requirements towards more competency based approach. And so it gives a close up look at how this type of shift is allowing students in one Houston area district to engage in much richer work based learning through a partnership with a local hospital there. And so obviously some of your favorite themes in there, Michael, what did you take away from this story?
Yeah, well, a few things. One obviously we've had Tim Knowles on class disrupted right before the head of the Carnegie foundation and Diane's obviously on the board. So this is a group that, that we pay a lot of attention to. In many ways they're making up for what at the time was a big innovation and now they're cardinal sin, right of creating seat time as the measure of, of learning against which students progress and so forth. What I think is interesting about this is that we've seen a lot of I think reinvention efforts around K8 learning, right. But now high school redesign, that was sort of a theme 15 years ago with the Gates Foundation. But this seems Danny, to me at least like really interesting for how connected it is to work based learning experiences. And you and I have both been hypothesizing a lot that sort of a career connected learning for all we've written about this, right is a critical thrust. And so the way that they're actually creating real partnerships seems to me really interesting.