Rethinking What Educational Success Looks Like
Gallup’s latest findings should cause all of us in education to pause. Only 32% of Americans say they are satisfied with the quality of K–12 education in the United States, the lowest level in Gallup’s 27-year trend.
Perhaps even more striking is that critical thinking and problem-solving received the lowest ratings among all skills measured, with just 20% of adults saying schools are doing a good job preparing students in these areas. While schools received their highest marks for adapting to new technology, digital tools are only as effective as the minds trained to use them.
Seeing these results makes me wonder again about the future of our schools and the imperative to continue to rethink how we define educational success.
For me, the findings reinforce the importance of an education that goes far beyond knowledge acquisition. Students need strong foundational skills, but they also need to know how to question, analyze, communicate, collaborate, and adapt when answers are not obvious. Preparing students for a complex world means creating classrooms where they are encouraged to think deeply, take intellectual risks, and learn from mistakes.
Academic rigor and human connection are completely inseparable.
What does it mean to prepare every student?
If our goal is to develop critical thinkers and problem solvers, then we have to begin by recognizing that students do not all learn in the same way.
This may seem obvious, but it has significant implications for how we design schools and classrooms.
Consider a student with ADHD. That student may have an extraordinary capacity for creative thinking and problem-solving while simultaneously struggling with sustained attention, organization, time management, or task initiation. A student with dyslexia may bring sophisticated verbal reasoning, curiosity, and insight to the classroom while finding reading and writing more demanding.
A student with executive functioning challenges may understand a complex assignment perfectly well but struggle to organize the steps necessary to complete it. Another student may experience academic anxiety, not because they lack ability or motivation, but because repeated experiences of frustration have eroded their confidence as a learner.
These students do not need less challenging work. They need educators who understand how they learn and who can provide the strategies, structures, and support that allow them to demonstrate what they know.
That distinction is essential.
When we talk about making education accessible, we are not talking about lowering expectations. We are talking about removing unnecessary barriers between a student and the learning we want them to achieve.
Start with what students can do
At McLean School, this idea is at the heart of our Abilities Model®.
We begin with a student’s strengths and use those strengths as a foundation for growth. Our teachers work to understand not only what a student knows, but how that student learns best.
For a student with dyslexia, that might include explicit, structured literacy instruction and strategies that build both reading skills and confidence.
For a student with ADHD, it may mean developing systems for organization, attention, time management, and self-advocacy.
For a student with executive functioning challenges, it can mean explicitly teaching skills such as planning, prioritizing, breaking down complex tasks, monitoring progress, and managing long-term assignments.
And for a student experiencing academic anxiety, it may begin with creating a learning environment where mistakes are understood as part of the learning process rather than evidence of failure.
These approaches are not alternatives to academic rigor. They are what make rigorous learning possible.
When students understand how they learn and have the tools to navigate challenges, they are better positioned to engage deeply with difficult material, persist when the answer isn’t immediately apparent, and take the intellectual risks that meaningful learning requires.
Critical thinking requires more than a curriculum
Critical thinking cannot simply be added to a curriculum as another skill to be checked off a list.
Students develop critical thinking by practicing it.
They need opportunities to wrestle with questions that do not have one obvious answer. They need to analyze information, consider competing perspectives, explain their reasoning, challenge assumptions, defend their ideas, and revise their thinking when new evidence emerges.
They also need teachers who know when to step in and when to step back.
The most effective classrooms are not necessarily those in which the teacher does the most talking or the student produces the most work. They are classrooms where students are actively engaged in the process of thinking, where curiosity is encouraged and where students gradually take greater ownership of their learning.
That ownership is particularly important as students move toward college and beyond.
We want students to leave school not simply knowing a great deal, but knowing how to learn, how to solve problems, and how to advocate for themselves when they encounter something they do not yet understand.
The importance of being known
There is also an encouraging truth within the Gallup data: parents remain far more satisfied with their own child’s school than with national education overall. That suggests families recognize meaningful, positive learning experiences when they see them firsthand.
I think one reason is simple: being known matters.
When teachers understand a student’s strengths, challenges, interests, and learning profile, they can make more informed decisions about how to teach that student.
A student is more likely to take a risk when they trust that their teacher will see the effort behind the mistake. They are more likely to ask for help when asking for help is treated as a strength rather than a weakness. And they are more likely to develop confidence when the adults around them consistently communicate that challenges are something to work through, not something that defines their potential.
This is especially meaningful for students who may have spent years feeling that they do not quite fit the traditional model of school.
A child with ADHD is more than a diagnosis. A student with dyslexia is more than a reading challenge. A student with executive functioning challenges is more than an organizational struggle.
Every student brings a set of abilities, interests, experiences, and possibilities into the classroom.
Our responsibility as educators is to see the whole student and build from there.
Rigor, relationships, and what comes next
The world our students will enter will continue to change. Technology will evolve. Artificial intelligence will reshape how we work. The information available to us will continue to expand.
What will remain essential is the ability to think.
To ask good questions.
To evaluate information.
To communicate an idea clearly.
To work with people whose perspectives differ from our own.
To recognize when a strategy is not working and try another.
To self-advocate when you need more help.
And to have the resilience and self-awareness to keep going when something is difficult.
Those capabilities do not emerge from technology alone, nor do they come from knowledge acquisition alone. They develop through relationships, practice, challenge, reflection, and the experience of being a capable learner.
At McLean School, our responsibility is to earn families’ confidence each and every day. Our mission is at the core of everything we do: making education accessible, meaningful, and stimulating for every student.
We bring this commitment to life across our programs, teaching practices, and learning environments. Whether we are supporting a student with ADHD, teaching a student with dyslexia to become a confident reader, helping a student develop executive functioning skills, or challenging a student to look at a familiar problem from an entirely new perspective, the goal is the same.
We want every student to develop the critical thinking, self-advocacy, and resilience needed to navigate whatever comes next.
Because ultimately, educational success is not simply about what students know when they leave us.
It is about whether they know how to keep learning.
Learn more about McLean School, a private co-ed college preparatory school for bright K-12 students in Potomac, Maryland. Request more information today.