I’ve come to believe one of the reasons we’ve seen so little progress in improving our public schools over the last several decades is that we can’t seem to agree on what we’re intending to make better.
Parental involvement? Student wellness? Standardized test scores? Attendance? Our football teams?
At K12 Lift, we’re about helping our partners do one thing: improve the quality of their Tier 1 instruction.
To us, improving schools means improving academic outcomes, and improving outcomes requires improving the quality of instruction students receive on the regular. Before interventions. Before afterschool tutoring. Before parents help with homework.
If this worldview resonates…
I am an engineer.
I’m curious. I enjoy wrestling with a good problem and building cool looking stuff. I believe in making things better, especially for other people.
I came to public education as a second career – first as an associate superintendent in a school district and later as a deputy chancellor at the Florida Department of Education.
In those roles, I desperately wanted clarity around what was working and what wasn’t. We were surrounded by data… but had few insights useful in helping us improve.
That was frustrating. State education agencies (SEAs) had worked hard to provide good academic standards and good assessments.
What they were missing was great reporting.
So, I created 
I designed data visualizations that, with training, allow principals, academic coaches, teachers, and administrators to answer questions they could never get at before:
With answers to these questions, they can design teacher-facing professional learning experiences that speak directly to the “why?” and “what now?” of their current outcomes.
After those trainings have been conducted and teachers have been given an opportunity to experiment with the new strategies they’ve learned, our next round of reports can be used to determine if the changes in instructional practice have had the desired effect.
Importantly, our reports use progress monitoring and state assessment data they already have – so no new testing.
meaningfully contextualized, print-ready, easy to read, and fun to look at
learners doing the talking, confronting misconceptions, constructing meaning, and kindling curiosity
Our individualized portfolios and trainings can be the basis of transformational change – a movement away from traditional accountability and public shaming and toward aspirational teaching.
A movement away from abstract notions of “school improvement” and toward concrete, specific bodies of work that prepare teachers to have routine, productive, joyful interactions with students around appropriately challenging content.
If you’re nodding your head “Yes!”…
Over the years we’ve seen it all.
And I have some really inspiring short stories to share…
A veteran superintendent knew what she wanted to do in a new district but didn’t have the information she needed to do it.
A team of instructional coaches who had content knowledge and teacher trust but suspected the data was misleading.
A district leadership team who wanted each of their principals to speak about academic success using the same language.
I know every company likes to think they’re unique. Here are a few ways we actually are different than any other data reporting company in the public education space:
Building K12 Lift hasn’t been easy, in part because making our stuff look and sound simple is incredibly complicated.
Here are the people making it happen:
Official title: Founder/CEO
Unofficial title: Head Dreamer
In any given day: Designing visualizations; wrestling SQL Server code; drinking 9 cups of coffee
Strange talent: Cursing while on camera
Official title: Chief Learning Facilitator
Unofficial title: Air Traffic Controller
In any given day: Curating meaningful adult learning experiences; wrangling the whirlwind of who, what, when and why
Strange talent: Finding the best local food spots
Official title: Data Engineer
Unofficial title: On-call Handyman (for code, not sinks)
In any given day: Code sleuthing, banging on things, finding funny noises, unclogging data, automating and scaling
Strange talent: Poker player and singer-songwriter, but not at the same time
Official title: Professional Learning Content Developer
Unofficial title: Resident Fixer Upper
In any given day: Making complex ideas fit on a single page; granting design wishes
Strange talent: Finding the needle in the haystack
Official title: Professional Learning Facilitator
Unofficial title: Conversation starter-in-chief
In any given day: Whatever Shannon is doing! (i.e., apprenticing); connecting people; keeping energy high
Strange talent: Will play the FSU fight song on command (yes, especially in the living room on Saturdays, clarinet in hand.)
Asking educators to set aside what they think they know, and embrace a different truth in service of the kids they teach, is really hard.
We’re great at that part too, and that’s what makes us different.
