Educational theories, policy makers, and entrepreneurs have long sought a remedy to the lagging progress of American schools by global standards. Measures of systemic failures abound; from international standardized tests, to retention and graduation rates, to anecdotal narratives of students being “left behind” (Rich, 2012).Yet, it remains a long-standing practice to idealize the perfect single solution to an underperforming system, despite the clear challenges of identifying one such silver bullet.
The public education space is steeped in theories, approaches, and measures. Instructional models and performance expectations are introduced and retracted with such regularity and speed that often there is not adequate time to fully implement and evaluate the models or approaches in relation to the intended indicators of success. As new models are developed to reflect emerging learning theory, or to address perceived deficiencies in student performance, they often fail to meet the expectations of the stakeholders. Most notably, in the 30 years following publication of "A Nation at Risk" (1983), educational spending has doubled, but student achievement has increased only marginally (Kern, Innovating Toward New Learning Models, 2011).
Perhaps there is not a static “one size fits all” solution to be found. Rather, a solution should make use of the approaches and strategies that are relevant to the local environment. Learner Epistemic Agency Pedagogical (LEAP) Model, a dynamic, student-centered, interdisciplinary, differentiated, experiential model, is designed to recognize the value of existing models, approaches, and theories by allowing for the unification and synergy of best practices in upper elementary and middle school classrooms while promoting the agency of each student.
