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Origin of HSe4Metrics

Founded in 2000
But the genesis of the effort was in 1974.
HSe4Metrics founder Vernon Baker—an industrial engineer—began meeting with parents of K–12 students and younger to discuss a bold new idea: a platform designed to support and elevate student performance nationwide.
That idea would later be given the temporary name HSe4Metrics platform—a free-access online innovation.

At the time of the 2000 founding, Baker was leading his own residential development firm—acquiring land for subdivisions, developing it, and installing roads and infrastructure—primarily in the Richmond, Virginia region, while expanding into neighboring counties. 

Although it was a busy time, he continued to meet with groups of parents of K–12 students and younger children. Like two decades of parents before them, they were calling for what had come to be known as the HSe4Metrics platform.

Parents over the years—from 1974 onward—increasingly shared four core requests for the platform:

  1. Free access for all. To ensure that no family is left behind, the platform must remain free-access at all times—regardless of its substantial implementation, testing, and operational costs.
  2. Active parental involvement. Parents must have the right to personally and actively participate in the platform’s operations in real time—as the platform is designed to enable.
  3. A lifeline for K–12 performance. The platform must serve as a lifeline for student performance—regardless of where a student’s school ranks on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scale.
    (Note: NAEP’s official minimum proficiency threshold is not the benchmark used by the HSe4Metrics platform. Instead, the platform sets its minimum at the top NAEP decile—an outcome achievable with the platform—serving, in HSe4Metrics’ view, as the prerequisite threshold that supports a broader system of hard-number metrics.)
  4. Hard numbers. Results across a wide range of metrics must be continuously verified in hard numbers—both at scale and at the individual student level.

Baker has personally funded all platform-related costs, accepting no compensation or outside contributions. (Disclosure: a top-100 U.S. law firm is providing pro bono assistance with the potential conversion of HSe4Metrics into a private foundation. HSe4Metrics is currently awaiting federal agency determination regarding whether such a conversion is necessary.)

However, the astronomically greater funding required for platform implementation, testing, and cloud costs  (see “The cost of the HSe4Metrics platform” below) has led Baker, parents, and volunteers—primarily a parent-led effort—to reach out to federal agencies, education and political leaders, and major publicly traded corporations, urging them to take a stand on K–12 student performance by sponsoring or seeking a sponsor for the free-access platform innovation.

Twenty-six years later, funding has not been secured. This explainer website—with Baker shown in a homepage slide holding the emblematic HSe “cube”—urges the nation to get involved.

No relief: since the founding of HSe4Metrics in 2000, tens of millions of K–12 students have graduated without its advantage—with NAEP results reflecting the outcome.

Click the + to see more. Click the  –  to see less

As indicated above, access must be free—in fairness to K–12 students, younger children, and their families. Accordingly, a funding sponsor is required.

  1. Startup and annual operations could exceed $70 million annually, plus marketing.

  2. If demand surges and success scales broadly, cloud infrastructure costs could ultimately reach billions per year (“the higher, the better”—click the Cloud link).

The goal of the HSe4Metrics platform extends far beyond a single metric such as NAEP. A national imperative must be that all K–12 students with the capacity achieve at the top NAEP decile. With the HSe4Metrics platform—and with NAEP assessments serving as verification—a substantial portion of students currently below minimum proficiency could perform at far higher levels.

Beyond NAEP, additional hard-number metrics are vital. The HSe4Metrics goal is to drive success across a wide range of hard-number metrics outcomes, building a totality of skills and performance required to thrive in modern society.

Conversely, the status quo yields unrealized potential, lower workforce productivity, and diminished national competitiveness.

For the United States, decades of underperforming K–12 outcomes are reflected not only in individual socioeconomic impact, but also in trillions of dollars in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—arguably forfeited—that a fully educated population could have generated.

Failure by parents. Many parents—try as they might—have been unable to improve their children’s K–12 performance, even in foundational reading and writing, as reflected in NAEP results. Other parents—perhaps unaware of the extent—face similar challenges across the broader range of K–12 metrics. Ultimately, it is the totality of performance that shapes lifetime outcomes.

Failure by the states. K–12 student performance across the states—on average—has long been in crisis. This reality came into sharper focus in the early 1960s, when John F. Kennedy took office. He was assassinated before he could advance a re-legislated federal hub to work with the independent states to drive K–12 student performance.

Failure by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). Seventeen years after Kennedy’s death, the K–12 performance challenge remained unresolved. In response, the federal government created the DOE. However, the Department has struggled to drive measurable nationwide gains in student performance.

Failure by K–12 students themselves. Despite sustained efforts by parents, states, and largely administrative efforts by the DOE, a large share of students has not reached minimum NAEP proficiency.

Innovation solution. While innovation results are not knowable until tested, post–HSe4Metrics NAEP assessment data may confirm that in combination with the HSe4Metrics platform, this otherwise forfeited population of underperforming K–12 students possesses the innate capacity to read, write, and perform mathematics at significantly higher levels—and to participate meaningfully in a much broader range of hard-number metrics.

Funding the HSe4Metrics platform is an investment in the nation’s human capital—one that can strengthen the U.S. economy and empower all families and individuals, from the most privileged to the most marginalized.

The creation of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) should have been a turning point—an opportunity to advance the John F. Kennedy vision to place all students, including the disenfranchised, on a stronger path to K-12 student performance success.

Instead, the DOE was established primarily as an administrative body. Rather than becoming an engine of sustained improvement in K–12 student performance, it has largely managed programs, collected data, and added layers of process and compliance—with substantial spending but limited, uneven gains in nationwide K–12 outcomes.

The Department’s founding legislation can be rewritten.

In the hands of Congress—acting on a bipartisan basis—and a receptive president, the U.S. Department of Education (click the link) can be restructured to serve as a change agent for national K–12 student performance. The Department has that potential.

The dual focus of this explainer site is to re-legislate the DOE—centered on innovation—and to implement the HSe4Metrics platform.

The HSe4Metrics platform—at a relatively low initial cost in the range of $70 million, before cloud costs scale—can serve as the DOE’s first major innovation effort.

A two-minute video provided by a volunteer—highly recommended by parents

Early brain development. Infancy and the years before kindergarten represent a once-in-a-lifetime period of brain development. How do external stimuli shape foundational traits like intellectual energy and cognitive capacity?

The bottom 50%. For decades, as if destined from birth, half of K–12 students fall to the NAEP bottom. HSe4Metrics’ free-access online platform offers a societal innovation to rewrite that future—unlocking a human capital gold rush for the United States.

The top 10%. NAEP is far from the only key metric. Even the top 10% of students risk falling short of their full K–12—and lifetime—potential.

Students in the middle. With the HSe4Metrics platform, students between the top 10% and the bottom 50% could rise to compete with the top performers.

Got an idea for a sponsor? Let’s talk.

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