Reimagining High School: Lessons from Indiana, Kentucky, and Washington

High school shouldn’t feel like a waiting room for life—but too often, it does. Many students float through their final years, disengaged and uncertain about the future. Across the country, states are rethinking high school in their efforts to reengage students through durable approaches that are academically rich, relevant, and personalized to students’ postsecondary plans.

To further these efforts, the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) is working closely with a cohort of five states through its High School Transformation State Network, which includes California, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Washington. The Network aims to enhance the capacity of state boards of education to enable student learning experiences that foster content mastery and durable skills through partnerships with state higher education and workforce agency leaders, students, and school leaders.

Students play a central role in this work through the Network’s Student Advisory Council by identifying what needs to change to make high schools more relevant and engaging. What we heard from these phenomenal student leaders, all of whom serve on state boards of education, largely aligns with what high school students across the country say: They want more agency over their learning. They want to develop durable skills such as communication, critical thinking, and financial literacy, acquired through high-quality learning inside and outside the classroom, that will prepare them for life after high school. And they see high school as not just an intellectual activity but as one that involves their whole selves—mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally.

The ideal high school conditions students are advocating for run parallel to what employers say are needed from entry-level employees. Skills such as critical thinking and communication are in high demand by hiring managers, and candidates with work experience or industry-recognized credentials are considered better prepared than students without these qualifications.

NASBE recently profiled the work taking place in Indiana, Washington, and Kentucky, finding that leaders recognize that in order for high schools to better respond to the needs of students and employers, they must shift away from siloed policy actions and toward a more coherent, strategic approach that transforms high schools. While the immediate goal is for all students to succeed academically, there are a host of physical, social, and emotional conditions that make this success possible and set students up for success in life by increasing students’ ability to steer their learning experiences toward goals they set; providing richer, more engaging learning opportunities; and supporting their academic and social-emotional growth.

How Network States Are Defining and Developing Durable Skills

Durable skills are those that are deemed essential for career success and economic mobility, valued across industries, and able to withstand significant technological and economic changes. States have often captured these skills in their portraits of a graduate, which outline high-level knowledge, skills, and characteristics students should acquire before they graduate. To identify these skills for their students, Washington, Kentucky, and Indiana, as well as 17 other states, each engaged communities across their states—business leaders, parents, teachers, and students—to create visions for what a high school graduate needs to live, work, and prosper.

Critical thinking and problem solving, social awareness, communication, and collaboration are skills commonly included in the state portraits. While these skills’ value may appear obvious, employers routinely report that their new hires lack these skills. High schools can help students develop them.

Portraits are not a checklist of discrete attributes but rather reflections of students’ identities and potential to become whole, capable adults. Kentucky Board of Education member Lu Young said it best: “When fully implemented, portraits of a learner become the lever by which teachers, schools, and communities rebalance learning expectations.”

Personalized and Rich Learning

By setting a vision for the skills and dispositions students should embody, states can embolden schools to transform how and where students learn. With agency over their learning coupled with academic and social-emotional support from schools, students become more engaged and thus see greater academic gains.

Students crave and benefit from hands-on learning experiences. Indiana has set pathways that enable students to personalize their learning and walk away from high school with earned credentials or automatic admission to the state’s public universities. Its department of education has set lofty goals: aiming to increase the high school graduation rate to 95% and the percentage of students earning a credential, certificate, or associate’s degree while in high school to 60% by 2030.

In select Algebra I classrooms, Kentucky has piloted math badging, which gives students credit for gaining discrete skills and includes tasks that require students to solve real-world problems while boosting their confidence in their math skills.

The Washington State Board of Education launched the Mastery-based Learning Collaborative in 2021 to expand schools’ ability to deliver rigorous and culturally relevant instruction, which allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in the subject they are studying and gauge progress based on evidence of mastery, not seat time. Participating schools embrace student-centered practices such as project-based learning, badging, and student-led conferences that promote student ownership of their work. The state provides planning grants and funds for materials, equipment, and continuing teacher professional development.

Creating Safe and Supportive Learning Environments for Students to Thrive

As part of NASBE’s high school transformation work, we frequently visit innovative high schools to facilitate conversations with state policymakers about what high schools could be like, and what it would take for these innovative models to root, grow, and scale. During our visits, we engage with students who tell us they love their classes and are also quick to say there is more to high school than academic learning. They also value the skills they are developing that support them in discovering who they are and navigating challenges with classes and social situations.

During our visit to Purdue Polytechnic High School at the network kickoff meeting in Indianapolis in April 2025, students shared how important having a trusted adult at school was to them. Notes posted outside each classroom reiterate the school’s expectations for the learning environment:

Please be accountable for the energy you bring into this space.
You matter. Your words matter. Your actions matter.
Our students and staff matter.
Thank you for respecting the people who make this place special.

Although it falls primarily to school staff to foster students’ sense of connectedness and ensure they receive academic and social-emotional support, state leaders also have a role to support the development of valid measures of school climate in school accountability systems and investing in student-centered learning that provides academically rich and rigorous instructional experiences both within and outside the school classroom.

The Kentucky United We Learn Council, comprising local stakeholders, including students, defined vibrant learning as experiences that spark curiosity, motivation, and engagement while cultivating enthusiasm for lifelong learning. This vision is articulated through the state’s Portrait of a Learner and its revised accountability framework, which will require each district to show how it is providing every student with meaningful and relevant learning experiences.

Through the state board’s FutureReady initiative, Washington is involving students and families from all backgrounds and regions in redesigning graduation requirements. Their input will inform the work of a task force and culminate in a 2027 proposal to the legislature that aligns graduation requirements with the statewide portrait of a graduate. Ensuring that diverse communities define what high school should look like sets the tone for creating safe and supportive learning environments for all students.

States to Watch

During the network kickoff meeting hosted by NASBE, all six states came together to share their journey toward transforming high schools, foster cross-state collaboration, and develop an action plan to facilitate systems changes that further enable high school transformation. Since that convening, state teams have prioritized stakeholder engagement to unite behind a shared vision for preparing students for postsecondary success and enabling more hands-on relevant learning experiences. As a part of its New York Inspires plan to transform education, the New York Board of Regents approved a statewide portrait of a graduate over the summer that emphasizes knowledge and skill development as well as dispositions that students should embody to be successful in college, career, civic engagement, service, and life.

The California team has started the process of developing a statewide portrait of a graduate by collecting stakeholder input and gaining a better understanding of how school districts have designed local portraits of a graduate. Additionally, the California legislature appropriated $10 million for a Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program to invest directly in a network of schools and nonprofits dedicated to redesigning secondary schools and become a model of how schools can be organized to better serve all students.

Transforming high schools requires bold systemic changes grounded in the shared vision of all stakeholders—students, educators, families, communities, and state leaders. By setting clear goals and building the supports and infrastructure to move beyond traditional models, states can create the conditions for innovative, student-centered high school models that offer personalized, engaging, and supportive learning experiences. Through policies and priorities that make transformation possible, Washington, Kentucky, and Indiana are showing the country what high schools can become.