Here’s a question: how long does it take for a student to learn a single subject?
a. 120 hours
b. 186 days
c. Nine weeks
d. Four years
The answer—it depends. Learning is different for all students. As any experienced educator will share, different strategies work for different students. But if you guessed “a. 120 hours,” what you’ve actually identified is the Carnegie Unit.
🪑 What is the Carnegie Unit?
Created in 1906, the Carnegie Unit represents how a student earns one high school credit: 120 hours of classroom time (or 7,200 instructional minutes), which roughly translates into one 50-minute class meeting five days a week for 36 weeks (two semesters).
More than 100 years later, this structure remains the standard for most high schoolers. This was my high school experience for six classes a day as a student in the early 2000s. But many educators agree—it’s time to change this structure to bring more meaningful, engaged learning to students.
There’s a solution to this, and it relies on updating the archaic limitations of the Carnegie Unit.
🤝 Carnegie + XQ
XQ and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have launched a path-breaking partnership to co-construct a new educational “architecture” to catalyze the transformation of high school learning across the United States, and even the globe.
The goal: liberate learning from the confines of a strictly time-based system to a competency-based system where learning can happen anywhere. Fueled by the latest research in neuro and learning sciences, we can better prepare young people for all the future has to offer.
🏗️ What’s needed in this new architecture? Together, we will create new building blocks:
- Clear and persuasive learner outcomes
- Powerful learning experiences aligned with those outcomes
- New student performance frameworks
- Technology-enabled badging, assessment, and transcript systems to validate, credential, and codify what young people learn
- Mold-breaking designs for teaching, learning, and schools
Alongside Carnegie, we at XQ have launched a strategic effort to co-create and produce this architecture, starting with powerful curricular materials, which we call CF+XQ Learning Experiences (LXs).
🧑‍🎓 Each module of curriculum engages young people in learning that is project-based, high-interest, authentic, and rigorous. And unlike current domain-specific curricula, LXs are multi-dimensional, intentionally building students’ academic content knowledge along with their academic, cognitive, and social-emotional competencies at the same time.
đź“š To create more authentic and engaging learning, single subjects like biology, algebra, social studies, and English should not be limited to discrete 50-minute blocks of time. Learning can, should, and must happen beyond the traditional classroom model if we are to better prepare students for the future.
To learn more about how we can create a new educational architecture for the high school of today, and why it matters, read our report: Why the School System Needs to Change, and How.
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