At the time of the 2000 founding, Baker was leading his own residential development firm

Activities included acquiring land for subdivisions, developing the land, and installing roads and infrastructure—primarily in the Richmond, Virginia region, while expanding into more distant counties.

An unrelated entrepreneurial solution

In an unrelated field—K-12 student performance—Baker had long been working with parents on a societal innovation intended to transform K-12 student performance. The innovation, referred to as the HSe4Metrics platform, would leave America’s teachers and the K-12 system free to teach traditional core material in a traditional manner.

Although it was a busy time, Baker continued—as he had for decades—to informally interview parents of K–12 students and younger children.

Even before the formal HSe4Metrics founding in 2000 a new concern emerged: the potential for a nationwide movement toward computers in the classroom. Parents became increasingly concerned that teachers might be left with less time to teach core material. Instead, these parents and HSe4Metrics believed that a fully separate and independent venue—outside the K–12 classroom—was the place for such computer- and internet-based activity. Precious traditional teaching time in the classroom must remain sacrosanct.

Two years after the 2000 HSe4Metrics founding, representatives of these parents met with a DOE official—just down the hall from the Secretary—before the advent of Facebook and the sudden mass awareness of social media. They presented their concerns about K–12 student performance, asked that the HSe4Metrics platform be supported rather than a certain imminent federal program, and focused on the merits of the platform—and the platform’s nondisruptive advantage of operating independently, outside the classroom, computer-based, and online.

Harness it

At the DOE meeting, the first stumbling block was the difficulty of fully conveying the potential power of the still largely unfamiliar concept of social media. Remember, Facebook had not yet arrived; its launch would soon help make social media understandable as a formidable tool.

Likewise difficult to convey, therefore, was the urgent need to harness that social media power for a societal good—K–12 student performance. The parents then presented the precise means to make that possible: the HSe4Metrics platform, its operations, and a quick overview of its operating principles:

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.  No commercial advertising. The platform must not allow commercial advertising. Funding must come from another source.

3. 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.
4. 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.
5. A much higher minimum threshold for the HSe4Metrics platform. NAEP Proficient should not be the minimum threshold for the HSe4Metrics platform. Besides being far below what a student may have the ability to accomplish, the NAEP Proficient may not be sufficient for a K–12 graduate to be deemed hirable or even trainable—certainly not by today’s advanced factories—or to be adequately prepared for further education and training.

   (a) The HSe4Metrics minimum should be substantially higher—potentially reaching the upper NAEP performance ranges, referred to by HSe4Metrics as the “upper NAEP deciles.”

   (b) The supposition to be tested: Future empirical evidence may someday demonstrate that 80% to 90% of today’s K–12 students who do not reach minimum NAEP proficiency nonetheless had the innate ability to achieve not only that minimum, but substantially higher levels of performance.

6. Independent. The platform is not a school. The platform should place no additional burdens on K–12 systems or teachers. States’ K–12 school systems must remain free to teach in the manner they choose, with no connection to the HSe4Metrics platform. Operating in parallel with—but fully independent of—any state or K–12 school system, the transformative platform would be outside the K–12 classroom, computer-based, and online.

7. Hard numbers. No guessing. No speculation. K–12 student performance results across a wide range of metrics must be continuously verified by hard numbers—both at scale and at the individual student level.

The highest performers—and the lowest

Fundamental to the platform: It is not just about the lowest performers. Without an innovation such as the HSe4Metrics platform, even the highest-performing students may leave much of their potential on the table during their K–12 years—a strategic period of development that can never be replaced.

But implementation requires funding—perhaps a funding sponsor.

• A major corporation could serve as the HSe4Metrics platform’s sponsor. As a function of the platform’s success—measured by hard-number metrics and witnessed by parents—the sponsorship could generate substantial public appreciation, potentially strengthen customer loyalty, and create financial value for the corporate sponsor. (Click Sponsor.)
• Or a federal agency—including the U.S. Department of Education—could take the lead in this nationwide initiative focused on K–12 student performance. (Click Sponsor.)

Major funding

On a micro level, Vernon Baker has personally funded all platform-related costs, accepting no compensation or outside contributions. (An exception: A U.S. law firm, well within the nation’s top 100 as ranked by Vault, is providing pro bono assistance with the potential conversion of HSe4Metrics into a private foundation. HSe4Metrics is currently pausing the conversion as it awaits a federal agency determination regarding whether such a conversion would be necessary. A commercial sponsor, however, might prefer the current organizational structure.)

However, the HSe4Metrics implementation roadblock has been major funding. Perhaps a blip compared with a major corporation’s potential gains in market share and margins, or to a federal agency looking at GDP, appropriate funding is required for platform implementation, testing, and cloud costs.

Following the meeting with HSe4Metrics parents, HSe4Metrics heard nothing further from the DOE. 

In sum, the purpose of this explainer website—with Baker shown in a homepage slide with a hopeful member of Generation Alpha (too late for Generation Z)—is to help secure that funding. HSe4Metrics remains ready to implement and test the platform innovation.

Meanwhile, NAEP results—broadcast by the media

Since the founding of HSe4Metrics in 2000, media coverage of persistently dire NAEP results has continued for more than two decades—as a substantial share of the nation’s K–12 student potential continues to be lost, with many students not even achieving NAEP Proficient. This happens in plain sight—there has been no conventional or traditional solution.

Making this worse is relevance: Even if NAEP Proficient is reached, that is not considered by HSe4Metrics to be competitive, sufficient—or acceptable. That is, a vast percentage of students at or below NAEP Proficient may be capable of far more. They are being left behind. Needed are functionally significant gains—beyond traditional efforts, needed is innovation.

So why spend years debating whether conventional results are mixed or whether a result is statistically significant—such as an anomalous gain in a specific state’s fourth-grade math students reaching NAEP Proficient? (And will such gain even survive the next testing cycle.)

Rather, the objective must be functionally significant.

The HSe4Metrics distinction: Well beyond NAEP Proficient, functionally significant means transformation in K–12 student performance demonstrated by hard-number metrics—one such hard-number metric being NAEP—with cumulative nationwide multipoint jumps from one testing cycle to the next. The HSe4Metrics platform innovation is designed to generate that transformation.

Traditional K–12 leveraged by independent, surrounding innovation—the platform

First. Difficult to convey was the power of social media—this being before the 2004 launch of Facebook would help make “social media” a household term. Also difficult to convey was that the HSe4Metrics platform would be positioned for immediate, ubiquitous, and voluntary participation by the vast K–12 student demographic— from day one of its launch—for reasons addressed at the parents-DOE meeting. (This HSe4Metrics explainer site presents much of the same information—yet with proprietary details intentionally limited so as not to compromise an ultimate sponsor’s opportunity for success.)

Second. As with any true innovation, the success—or failure—of the HSe4Metrics platform would remain unknowable until it was implemented.

Third. The DOE was requested to advocate for HSe4Metrics by performing its due diligence and by asking other federal agencies, Congress, and the commercial sector to do the same.