John Hesch

I caught this program on NPR the other day, School Features Real-World Learning, No Grades.

It’s hard to imagine a school with no tests, no grades and no classes. But those familiar elements of education are missing at two dozen Big Picture schools in six states, each with no more than 120 students.

The results are pretty impressive.

The school measures its success in many ways — standardized achievement scores are higher than those at the three largest Providence high schools — but parents are most excited by these statistics: Almost every senior gets into college, 80 percent go to college, and five years later, most of those students are still in college or have graduated.