Idaho state schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra has sent a guest opinion out to Idaho newspapers warning that as the state moves toward “mastery based education,” one of the recommendations of Gov. Butch Otter’s education task force, education will become more personalized for Idaho students, but the process may be “messy and chaotic, and there will be failures and misfortunes that we will need to learn from, in order for our educational system to get better.”

“We have been so centered on ‘not failing’ that we haven’t been aiming for success!” Ybarra writes. She recalls that in her classroom, she used to have a poster on the wall saying, “This is a mistake-making place.” The idea was that success isn’t always immediate, and students need to develop strategies to work through mistakes and move beyond them. Writes Ybarra, “Failure is just a stepping stone on our path to success!” You can read her full guest opinion here.

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