How did LEC get started?
In 1975, at the conclusion of the Model Schools Project sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and the Danforth Foundation, five of the project’s most successful schools met with project staff in Los Angeles to form a self-help group to continue the task of renewing American and Canadian schools. LEC International and its companion FORUM are the current realizations of that organization.

What is LEC’s goal?
The major goal of LEC International is to assist schools in systemic redesign and in developing effective personalized instructional programs. LEC does not impose a rigid model on member schools but works to achieve enhanced administrator and teacher roles and to develop personalized approaches to instruction and evaluation.

What is the LEC Forum?
The Learning Environments Consortium Forum (LEC Forum) is an alliance of individual educators dedicated to the dissemination of knowledge, conducting professional development, and assisting educational practitioners in systemic design/redesign of schools and the personalization of student learning. The Forum is a web-based, researched-based extension of LEC International.

What is School Design?
The process for designing or redesigning a school is basically the same as the process for designing anything else. Our society has been reasonably successful in developing and manufacturing highly sophisticated products but less so in designing complex social and political systems -- like schools. With few exceptions, schools have not been designed. They have just evolved from earlier forms of schooling, with little or no thought given to the validity or relevance of the organizational structures and programs. The Learning Environments Consortium International proposes that schools interested in systematic improvement must first become learning organizations and develop their own School Design Statements, with carefully written specifications for the design components. School design applies systems thinking to the process of school renewal.

What is Personalized Instruction?
Personalized instruction is the effort on the part of a school to take into account individual student characteristics and needs, and flexible instructional practices, in organizing the learning environment of the school. It is an attempt to match school resources and flexible teaching strategies with the needs of individual students. It is characterized by:

1. A dual teacher role of coach and advisor;
2. The diagnosis of relevant student learning characteristics, including developmental level, cognitive/learning style and prior knowledge/skills.
3. A culture of collegiality in the school, characterized by a constructivist environment and collaborative learning arrangements.
4. An interactive learning environment characterized by small school or small group (class) size, thoughtful conversation, active learning activities and authentic
   student achievement.
5. Flexible scheduling and pacing, with adequate structure; and
6. Authentic assessment.