States Team for High School Makeover With Eye Toward '21st-Century Skills'

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island are moving ahead with a joint effort to remake the high school experience in their states.

The New England Secondary School Consortium aims to create high schools that are "flexible, borderless, multidimensional community learning centers" in which students would have the chance to study at the secondary and postsecondary levels, do research in their communities, build real-world skills through internships, and immerse themselves in technology.

This learning would be infused with "21st century skills"—a bevy of strengths from problem-solving prowess to global awareness—and assessments that properly gauge such a diverse set of skills would have to be carefully designed or chosen, leaders...