Mike Goldstein on Teen Flourishing

Editor’s Note: For more than two decades, I’ve admired Mike Goldstein as one of the true pioneers of modern education reform. As the founder of Match in Boston—one of the most relentlessly thoughtful, data-driven, and high-performing charter schools in the country—Mike built a reputation not just for results, but for an unusually rigorous way of thinking about how those results are achieved. He has never been content with slogans or easy answers. He interrogates assumptions, tests ideas, and follows the evidence wherever it leads.

Now he’s turning that same disciplined, clear-eyed approach to a challenge that sits largely outside the reach of schools, and in some ways dwarfs the academic debates that have consumed us for decades. His new effort, the Center for Teen Flourishing, starts from an uncomfortable truth: Even the best schools can’t get kids all the way to flourishing. Not when so much of what shapes their character, habits, happiness, and sense of purpose happens “from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m.”—in the unstructured hours where too many teens today drift toward passivity, isolation, and screens. If we are serious about helping teenagers truly flourish, we need to think beyond classrooms and curricula and confront the broader social, emotional, familial, and civic conditions that shape their lives.

I recently sent Mike a series of questions about this emerging initiative, how his thinking has evolved, and why he believes our field must expand its ambitions. His answers, characteristically, are sharp, honest, and provocative. I’m delighted to share them here. – RP

1. What is the Center for Teen Flourishing?

The Center for Teen Flourishing is an R&D lab for the 3pm to 3am hours.

I started Match as a lab when ed reform was cooking. We tried things. Many failed! Some worked. High-dosage tutoring got its start at Match and scaled up. We also piloted an unusual teacher prep program and a new kind of college. The coin of the realm was achievement gains as measured by state tests.

CTF also wants to experiment, but with a different outcome metric: “hours per week of flourishing.” Many teens describe themselves as not doing much out of school besides scrolling on their phones. Some try to change their behavior but struggle. The conventional wisdom does not seem to be helping, so let’s try some new ideas (and measure the results). We’ll collect field notes along the way.

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