Redefining Success for Students
October 01, 2026
A child development authority seeks a balance of textbook knowledge with flexible, human-centric abilities
Every autumn, a new generation of 5-year-olds crosses the school threshold for the very first time. I remember dropping off each of my two daughters for their first day of kindergarten with solemn bravery. Alongside managing their emotions — and mine — I wondered, “Will they succeed?”
Research has shown that long-term success depends on both academic achievement and relational skills. Today’s landscape does not just reward those who can memorize information. It thrives on people who can collaborate, adapt and solve messy, unpredictable problems.
Yet walk into almost any school, and you will find that “success” is still defined by a number on a high-stakes, standardized test beginning in 3rd grade.
Although academic test scores matter, they are downstream from the core, foundational neurocognitive skills that presage them, and they are divorced from the everyday contexts of learning. As the pioneering educator John Dewey famously observed, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” If we want our schools to feel vital and relevant, we must fundamentally shift the focus toward tracking both academic knowledge and the durable life skills that truly matter, beginning in preschool.
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Author
Stephanie M. CarlsonAn Executive Function Scale That’s Measuring Readiness
One tool my research lab at the Institute of Child Development developed to fill the gap between academic and real-life skills is the Minnesota Executive Function Scale, or MEFS.
The scale is a 5-minute assessment of neurocognitive executive function skills that is reliable and valid starting at two years of age. It has been normed on more than 100,000 typically developing children ages 2-18 in the United States to help educators and families better understand what to expect at a given age and make data-informed decisions about actionable next steps.
The MEFS has been used since 2016 in several school districts to inform kindergarten readiness and data-driven decisions around school-based interventions. In New Mexico, it is being administered to all enrolled early learners, including in district-run preK programs. Despite approximately 28 percent of New Mexico’s children living in poverty and the state often ranking 50th in child wellbeing, recent investments are driving a major turnaround. In 2022, voters approved a constitutional amendment to fund early childhood education via the Land Grant Permanent Fund.
Today, New Mexico ranks fifth in state spending per child and seventh in preschool access for 3-year-olds, meeting nine of 10 quality benchmarks established by the National Institute for Early Education Research. A cornerstone of this success is the statewide investment in executive function skills. Following a successful pilot, Reflection Sciences implemented a full-scale program in 2025-26 across approximately 585 sites, reaching community-based, public school and tribal programs. The results were highly significant and reflected a substantial improvement in students’ executive function skills.
From fall 2025 to spring 2026, students’ average scores improved by a total of four percentile points (from 43rd to 47th out of 100). Because the MEFS is nationally normed and age-adjusted, this increase represents a genuine improvement in their underlying executive function skills (relative to their peers nationwide), rather than a practice or maturation effect. This result ensures a substantial portion of New Mexico preschoolers now will enter kindergarten with age-appropriate skills.
Elizabeth Groginski, state secretary of early childhood education and care, credits this achievement to the program’s teacher training, instructional guidance and the feasibility of the MEFS for large-scale use. Looking ahead, the program will expand in 2026-27 to serve children 2-13 years of age.
The Missing Link
Our research suggests this high-impact model could have lasting effects. Two school districts in Minnesota, St. Anthony and Minneapolis, administered an early version of the MEFS to preschoolers as part of the state’s mandatory developmental screening.
Our team at the University of Minnesota followed up with the same students in 3rd grade. We found their executive function skills in preK significantly predicted their reading and math standardized scores on the Measures of Academic Progress (St. Anthony) and the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (Minneapolis). These results held up even when we controlled for age, sex, race and prior performance on literacy and numeracy in preschool.
Awareness of the importance of executive function skills is expanding. Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, Indiana’s third-largest district with 21,000 students and 40 schools, has been implementing the MEFS for several years alongside their Growth in Academics through Innovation and Network initiative to address challenges with school readiness, achievement gaps and disruptive behaviors.
Stakeholders said they were pleased with the developments. “Executive function wasn’t an abstract concept,” Susan Phelps, chief officer of neuroeducation for Evansville Vanderburgh, said. “It was a missing link between instruction, behavior and academic performance.”
After implementing the classroom activities, an elementary grades teacher in the same district said she “really saw the connection between my students’ EF scores and their academic performance.”
— Stephanie Carlson
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