Over the last few years, I’ve helped several districts work on building and implementing their Portrait of a Graduate. But even as I did, a question nagged at me. Do those beautifully crafted Portraits of a Graduate that districts proudly display actually change what happens in classrooms? Or are they destined to become just another poster on the wall?
The Promise and the Problem
If you’re not familiar with them, Portraits of a Graduate (PoGs) outline the skills, competencies, and mindsets we hope students develop by graduation—things like critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and adaptability. They represent a shift away from purely academic measures toward a more holistic view of student success. Districts across the country have invested significant time and resources in developing these portraits through community engagement processes. But then what?
With that question in mind, my colleague Scott McLeod and I interviewed leaders from 15 districts ranging from 750 to 82,000 students to understand how these aspirational visions translate into daily teaching and learning. These weren’t random districts—each had begun POG implementation, some as recently as the previous year, others for nearly a decade. We wanted to understand the full spectrum of implementation experiences.
What we discovered was both encouraging and sobering.
The Reality Check: “Not Yet”
The overwhelming pattern across our interviews? “Not yet.”
While district leaders spoke passionately about their PoG as their “North Star” or “promise to students,” most admitted that systematic implementation remained elusive. One leader captured it perfectly when describing how the PoG and curriculum existed on “parallel tracks that only occasionally intersect.” Another told us that despite having a Portrait for seven years, they still hadn’t seen major changes to curriculum and instruction.
This isn’t for lack of trying—we heard about pockets of innovation, pilot programs, and genuine enthusiasm from educators. Teachers were experimenting with project-based learning, creating portfolios, and finding creative ways to weave competencies into their lessons. But systemic change has proven far more challenging.
The Assessment-Instruction Gap
What particularly struck us was the assessment gap. Even in districts making progress with curriculum alignment and instructional shifts, assessment of these competencies lagged significantly behind. Students might be asked to demonstrate critical thinking or collaboration in a capstone project, but these assessments often feel divorced from their daily learning experiences.
One superintendent put it bluntly: Students are “so successful in those areas [of the POG], but the measurements that we are grading and reporting are all about, ‘Well, how are they making progress in language arts? How are they making progress in mathematics?… We are in storytelling mode, and we’ve got to get beyond that.”
How can we expect students to develop competencies that we’re not systematically teaching or assessing? This fundamental misalignment creates confusion for students, who must navigate between what we say we value and what actually determines their grades and graduation.
COVID’s Complex Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic added another layer of complexity to this already challenging work. Some leaders told us it set them back years—just as they were building momentum, everything came to a halt. Professional development was postponed, pilot programs were abandoned, and everyone focused on simply surviving the crisis.
Yet others found the pandemic created unexpected momentum. One leader described how educators emerged from this period with a shared recognition that “business as usual” wasn’t working and a hunger for something different. The disruption, painful as it was, created an opening for reimagining education that might not have existed otherwise.
Bright Spots and Lessons Learned
There were bright spots in our research. One small district in the Midwest had achieved what appeared to be true systemic integration, where competencies were surveyed after every standard, teachers regularly reviewed results with administrators, and even hiring practices aligned with their model. They rarely hired experienced teachers because, as their superintendent explained, the “unlearning what they thought was right” was just “brutal.”
We also found districts making progress through strategic patience and teacher autonomy. One district invited teachers to simply notice where PoG competencies naturally appeared in their curriculum—no mandates, just awareness. This gentle approach led to unexpected enthusiasm, with teachers creating wall charts mapping competencies across grade levels and subjects, identifying gaps, and collaborating in ways administrators hadn’t anticipated.
The Implementation Framework
Through our analysis, we developed a framework that maps implementation across seven domains—from vision and systems to assessment approaches and stakeholder experience. Most districts fell into what we call “emerging integration,” with changes happening in pockets rather than systemically. Only one district achieved what we termed “transformational integration” across most domains.
The pattern was clear: districts might reference the PoG in curriculum documents or provide professional development on competency development, but they stopped short of making these competencies consequential through formal assessment and graduation requirements. Without this accountability piece, the PoG remains aspirational rather than operational.
Questions remain
This research has left me with more questions than answers. How do we move from inspiration to transformation? What structural changes are necessary to make these competencies truly consequential for both students and educators? And perhaps most importantly, are we willing to make the difficult choices—about assessment, graduation requirements, and accountability systems—that real change demands?
Your Experience?
I’m curious about your experiences. If your district has a Portrait of a Graduate, how would you assess its impact on daily instruction? What barriers have you encountered? And for those who’ve seen success, what made the difference?
Download our full research paper below to explore our complete findings, including the detailed implementation framework, case studies from participating districts, and specific strategies that showed promise. The paper examines the critical role of organizational coherence, offers practical insights for districts at any stage of their PoG journey, and presents hard truths about what it really takes to move from vision to reality.
If these portraits are going to be more than aspirational rhetoric—if they’re going to truly prepare our students for success beyond graduation—we need to understand not just what we’re aiming for, but how to actually get there. I’d love to join you on this journey.