Pat Burk on MLC's legacy

IN CORRESPONDENCE in late 2025, former principal Pat Burk (1991-93)—who also contributed perspectives at the time of the 2018 50th Anniversary—added valuable opinions about MLC's successes, distinctiveness, and weathering of policy transitions before, during, and after his tenure.

ON MLC'S APPROACH

My direct connection to MLC was a long time ago, and I am not sure your readers would be interested in my views, but I do believe the externalization of motivation, via the establishment of external outcome standards and measures, disconnected from kids and teachers in their daily lives, together have led to student disengagement, teacher frustration, and stagnation of student growth.

What we learned at MLC is that when the student could find connections to their passion, their curiosity, their voice, there was little that would stop them from learning, especially if the school should see its role as helping to facilitate the access to knowledge and information the student needs to pursue their passion.

The tricky part is that those passions and interests do not always fit into traditional pathways. They require structural flexibility. But the world is full of great successes and personal accomplishments based on individuals finding ways to connect to their passions and curiosities first, then going about pursuing them in more and more depth. It seems to me that personal fulfillment and contributions to society are enhanced when we can more directly connect schooling to that process.

ON MLC'S LONG LIFE

I [have given] thought to ... the astounding longevity of the school and the power of its foundational premise that students have voice and presence in their own learning. It seems so simple, but is most often absent when students are asked their feelings about their schooling. The concepts of measurement of standards, performance, growth rates and all the current language regarding proficiency, were, and perhaps still are, the antithesis of what MLC got right. Instead of comparing the MLC student to everyone else, the genius of MLC was connecting the school to the individual kid. There was never a "standard" MLC student who could be compared to a district or state standard. The concept never made sense.

The target at MLC was always how we connect learning opportunities to who this particular student is. Motivation is seen as coming from within. It seems so simple, but is so unusual in schools. Most school structures are about external power and authority for enforcement of compliance to norms of structure, of content, of learning progress, and of behavior. MLC, from the beginning, asked a very different question. What drives the curiosity and motivation to learn in an individual? How can we connect to that and build opportunities to learn around that?

Everything MLC did, in my opinion, was about opening doors, opening windows, turning on lights, whatever metaphor works. It was about engaging individual curiosity and motivation to learn within a community of care and support .... What you see over and over on this website are statements of personal safety; acceptance for who I am; accessibility of teachers; individual voice and engagement; self-directed learning; and, perhaps most importantly, personal agency: I learn what I choose to learn because it is meaningful and relevant to me.

The school always found a way to massage this fundamental principle into frameworks that met district and state standards, but ... from the founding of the school to the present, even the process of compliance put the needs and interests of the student at the core ....

To me, the reason the school has survived for so long is its adherence to that basic focus. Both for teachers and for students, there is magic in the sense of joy that comes when learning is connected to a student's core persona. It clicks. They know it and their teachers know it. It feels like magic, but it is actually quite natural to follow our curiosities, our questions, our desires to know more about the world around us in all its complexities and varieties of experience and ways of knowing. At its best, this is what MLC has been doing from the beginning.

ON CHANGING STANDARDS

[From original observations in 2018 ....] My time as principal at MLC overlapped a period of statewide change in Oregon schools with the passage of the Oregon Education Act for the 21st Century, better known as HB3565 (1991). This change moved the entire state toward evaluating student learning on the basis of projects, tasks, and portfolios of student work. While many found these changes to be dramatic and unfamiliar, MLC had used such assessment from its beginning.

MLC utilized then, as it does now, individualized projects, portfolios of student work, connections to the community and interdisciplinary work as evidence of student mastery of the course and grade level expectations. It also demonstrated how such information could be collected and shared with parents in meaningful conferences instead of the vagueness of a letter grade. As a result, MLC, although it was already well known, became more sought after by district and state leadership as an example of how project-based learning and evidence of student mastery could be collected and managed in ways that connected to individual student interests, as well as providing sound evidence of student growth toward academic standards.

Although, unfortunately, the Oregon Legislature eventually moved away from this very creative model for the state, it is a testament to the original MLC vision, and to the continuing staff and community commitment to personalized, engaged learning, that these activities continue at MLC today ....

[From correspondence in 2025] All of this happened before the movement by the federal government and, consequently, by state governments to mandate uniform curriculum standards in all schools and to conduct assessment of student performance in core content areas, i.e., mandatory testing, of all students. So, the challenge at the time was trying to maintain momentum for the innovations underway in Oregon ... and to make adjustments required by changes in federal law. It was not easy and there was resistance. We tried, I think successfully, to adjust while preserving the core values of the program at MLC.

I am aware from my continuation on to the district and state levels that these federal policy changes brought significant changes and challenges for schools like MLC. I remained in contact with the school long after I was transferred into the PPS central office, and the MLC staff did great work in remaining true to core values while meeting new requirements. Current school board member Patte Sullivan was a faculty member at MLC at the time, and we have discussed the stress that external policy changes placed on the core values of MLC.

I am fully aware that these external issues put pressure on the MLC program and that staff and community have continued to work hard to maintain the culture and innovation of the original model, particularly the core element of putting the engagement of students and their voice as the primary focus. So, it seems reasonable for us all to recognize that these evolutionary pressures are real and difficult. It is not the exact same school it was in the '60s, the '90s, or the early 2000s. What IS remarkable is that the school is still there, is still holding on to core values of engagement of students with creative and innovative ideas, and still putting the priority on engaging kids in their own learning. I would hope that the new principal knows that there are many of us who most admire the determination and hard work of the MLC community then and now, and its commitment to put kids first and to focus on engagement in learning as the essential characteristic.

ON THE ALUMNI WEBSITE

I have spent the better part of this evening going over the incredible archive of material you and others have gathered regarding the history and impact of this incredible school. I am grateful for your excellent work in capturing and sharing the history and evolution .... It is an amazing story and we are all in your debt for this excellent work.