Lutheran Schools of Excellence
ACADEMIC
EXCELLENCE
Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best (Proverbs 3:9 MSG).
Academic excellence is characteristic of schools that provide evidence of
sustained high levels of learning and performance for all students on the
knowledge and skills needed for success. Students in today’s Lutheran
schools must demonstrate the integration of academic and personal skills
into complex performances similar to real life tasks. Only with the
prerequisite skills, motivation, and a sense of efficacy will students be
prepared to meet the demands of life.
Motivation:
Learning is a life-long endeavor. Students need continual
opportunities to practice and assume increasing responsibility for their
own learning, so they become intrinsically motivated to continue
learning beyond school walls. Self-motivated learners can use what
they already know and are able to do to address future challenges in
learning and life.
Awareness: The first step in becoming a self-motivated learner is the
realization that you need to learn something new. This realization
then allows student to cooperate fully with the teacher in the
learning process.
Students cooperate fully with the teacher in the learning process.
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 Acknowledge
the need to
learn
 Apply new
strategies to
learn
 Self-assess
progress toward
learning goals
 Seek challenging
tasks to enhance
their learning
 Participate in
learning
activities in
school
 Identify their
own learning
styles
 Actively seek
help when
needed
 Actively seek
and receive
feedback and
criticism to
support their
learning
Aspiration: Once students accept their need and responsibility for
learning, they can take the next step toward independence as a
learner. They set goals for their learning based on academic
standards and measures of their own performance. With the
teacher’s guidance, they become increasingly articulate about and
effective with outlining both the substance and the purposes of
their learning.
Students take responsibility for their own learning.
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
Can always
explain what
they are
learning and
why

Know what
they have
already
learned and
still need to
learn

Assess their
work against
accepted or
established
performance
standards

Actively seek
and receive
feedback on
their
performances
to improve
their levels of
achievement
Engagement: Fully engaged, self-motivated learners initiate
learning because of an internal drive for deeper understanding,
skills, and knowledge. They achieve challenging goals on their
own for the sheer joy of learning, seeking assistance when
needed, and using new understandings to identify their next set
of learning goals.
Students accomplish challenging learning goals.
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 Achieve
learning goals
set by the
teacher/school
 Set new learning
goals on the
basis of selfassessment
 Persist to
achieve
personally
challenging
learning goals
 Effectively use
meta-cognition
to enhance their
learning
 Try new
activities
suggested by
the teacher
 Explore new
interests on
their own
 Readily accept
challenging
tasks to enhance
their learning
 Pursue learning
goals
independently of
teacher/school
Achievement:
Life and work in the 21st century require high levels of
thinking, performance, communication, and problem solving. Schools
around the world are held accountable for increasingly higher levels of
achievement; parents and society quite rightly expect that the claims
of schools to educate young people toward specific results should be
documented and achieved. In addition, competition for jobs is now
global rather than merely local or even regional.
Lutheran schools in particular need a reputation of academic
excellence for two reasons. As schools that rely on tuition in a market
of increasing choice for parents and rising standards in public schools,
Lutheran schools need to differentiate themselves from their
competition. Even more important, however, our response to God’s
saving grace calls us to excellence in all that we do.
Curriculum: As a starting point, Lutheran schools need a standardsbased curriculum that is documented, assessed, and monitored;
that challenges all students; and that reflects research, best
practices, and high standards in early childhood education,
elementary, middle level, and secondary education. Appropriate
instruction, resources, and support are provided to ensure all
students master the curriculum.
The school’s written curriculum is based on research and
professional standards for content, instruction, and assessment of
the learners’ age group.
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 Guides
instruction and
assessment
 Followed by
teachers and
used to assess
their instruction
of knowledge
and skills
 Provides a
coherent vision
for what
students need to
know and be
able to do
 Emphasizes
deep
understanding of
important
concepts
 Based on
content
standards of
national,
professional
organizations
(e.g., NCTM,
ACTFL, etc.)
 Uses technology
and information
resources to
meet learning
goals
 Enables
identification of
the
characteristics of
high-quality
work
 Prepares
learners for
success at next
level of
schooling
 Curricular
 Supported by
 Rigorous
 Structures the
resources and
expectations
development of
time to achieve
fully supported
critical and
curricular
by students,
creative thinking
expectations
teachers, and
in all subjects
parents

Expectations clear to students and parents

Prepares learners exceptionally well for noteworthy achievement in future
levels of education and life
Application: For learning to become profound, students must
continually practice the application of knowledge and skills into
new and more complex situations and settings. This transfer
may be as simple as using a mathematical operation in a
different kind of story problem or as complex as analyzing a
polluted stream near the school and publicly advocating its
restoration.
Learners effectively apply knowledge and skills to complex
performances as the result of curriculum, instructional practices,
and assessment practices.
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 Connect
concepts across
disciplines
 Engage
sometimes in
challenging
learning
activities, such
as extended
projects, handson activities,
inquiry-based
learning, and/or
project-based
learning
 Engage often in
effective
extended
projects, handson learning
activities,
inquiry based
learning, and
project-based
learning
experiences
 Higher order
learning goals
assessed
 Assessment
through a
variety of
practices and
processes (e.g.,
assignments,
projects,
performance
tasks, tests,
portfolios, etc)
to make
decisions about
instruction
 Use of formative
assessment
 Use of
summative
assessment
 Use of authentic
assessment
Performance: Each level of schooling aims to prepare students for the
next level of education and life. When each level aligns its goals,
curriculum, and measures to those of the next level, students can
make the transitions successfully.
While educational authorities often require success on standardized
tests of academic knowledge, students also need to perform
successfully on personal, social, and emotional levels to successfully
“achieve” in life. Lutheran schools must therefore seek high levels of
performance on non-academic as well as academic goals.
Students achieve recognized, high standards of performance on
external and internal measures of academic performance.
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 Identify what
 Work is
 Examine
 Revise work
each student
has learned
and still
needs to
learn
demanding
and
progressively
challenges
each learner
toward a
personal best
exemplars of
to raise levels
high quality
of
work that
performance
reflect
learning goals
prior to
beginning
assignments
or projects
 Achievement monitored on common benchmark assessments set both
internally and externally
 Collaboration by teachers to monitor and improve learners’ achievement on
benchmark assessments
Conclusion:
High levels of learning and performance of all students
related to both the academic and non-academic goals of schools define
academic excellence. Achieving this level of quality requires the entire
school community to collaborate and support the principal, teachers,
and students in the learning process—curriculum, instruction,
assessment, technology, facilities, resources, finances, governance,
and all other aspects of the school must focus directly on ensuring high
quality student learning.
Teachers and the principal operate as a professional learning
community, collaboratively analyzing achievement data and making
decisions about curriculum, instruction, and assessment to raise levels
of achievement on both internal and external measures of academic
performance.
References:
National forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform: Schools to Wath
Self-Study and Rating Rubric, 2007. Available:
http://www.clms.net/stw/2007/STW-TCS07-08SelfStudyRatingRubric.pdf
Student Learning Results Operational Definitions, 2007. Available:
http://dnet.hkis.edu.hk/plan/images/stories/dmdocuments/5.%20Whe
re%20do%20we%20want%20to%20be%202006-07.pdf.