Carnegie Foundation launches “Future of High School Network” with 24 innovative school systems across the country.

STANFORD, CA — June 18, 2025 — Today, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announced the launch of the Future of High School Network (FHS Network), a new initiative designed to catalyze learning, knowledge and impact to support a ‘new architecture’ for high school nationwide. The FHS Network brings together 24 school systems serving approximately 90,000 students, all committed to creating high schools that prepare students for success beyond graduation.

“For more than a century, the Carnegie Unit has defined the structure of American high schools with the conflation of seat time and learning,” said Dr. Timothy Knowles, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. “Today, we’re partnering with a fearless group of forward-leaning school systems across the country to imagine and instantiate education without the constraints of the Carnegie Unit. The Future of High School Network is about understanding and growing new models for the American high school—that set ambitious goals for students, offer meaningful, rigorous and engaging learning experiences, and use improved tools to measure and accelerate student progress.”

This effort is supported by leading national institutions, including the XQ Institute, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, the Stuart Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York as well as partners at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Together, the network members will work to modernize current outdated systems and scale competency-based high school models designed to accelerate student engagement, achievement and success in postsecondary education and work.

The Network will also serve as a test bed to inform the Carnegie Foundation’s forthcoming National Research and Development Agenda—a comprehensive effort to define the research and development priorities needed to advance effective high school transformation across the country. Ongoing insights from participating systems will help identify the conditions necessary for innovative models to take root, sustain and scale in high schools nationwide.

“Too many high schools were built for a world that no longer exists,” said Diego Arambula, Vice President for Educational Transformation, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.“ This Network, in tandem with our National Research and Development Agenda, will focus on building and refining what comes next, together with communities, educators, and most importantly, students.”

The inaugural network represents leaders from public school districts and charter school networks across urban, suburban, and rural regions of the country: