By: Elana Karopkin-Gold

“Rigor” is a term used across the ed sector in an attempt to ensure that all students have access to material that will prepare them for postsecondary success. From the explosive 2018 release TNTP’s report, The Opportunity Myth to Ed Reports’ subsequent and now widely-used standards-based curricular assessment tools and recommendations to districts requiring adoption of High Quality Curriculum Materials (HQIM), educators across the country have been working in different ways to ensure that students are being asked to do grade-level work and that they are provided the supports they need to be successful in that work. 

Against this broader national backdrop, clarity about what rigor truly entails has become increasingly important. Many organizations have tried to clarify this oft-used, but rarely-defined edu term. Generally, Springpoint and many of these organizations think about rigor in very similar ways: students—not the teacher—doing the heavy thinking; tasks that demand depth, open-ended thinking, and synthesis rather than mere recall; and scaffolds that maintain high expectations while supporting access for all students. These are absolutely critical factors in closing any opportunity gaps and in ensuring that all young people are prepared for a life of choice and success.

But rigor – especially at the high school level – is not enough. In our work with hundreds of high schools across the country, Springpoint has seen time and again that students also need to see the purpose in what they are being asked to do. If rigor describes how students engage in learning (the thinking, the challenge, the stretch), then purpose describes why they engage. Purpose invites students to care, to show up, to persist – because the work matters to them. 

Purpose is not an extra or a nice-to-have, it is a fundamental requirement. In our post-pandemic context, students are voting with their feet and telling us that they don’t see why school matters. Multiple national data syntheses agree that the overall K–12 chronic absenteeism rate roughly doubled from ~15% in 2018–19 to about 28% in 2022–23, with high school grades consistently the worst when broken out in multi-state datasets. We can and must do better. 

Importantly, rigor and purpose are not separate concepts, they are actually deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing. When students understand why they are doing what they are doing, they not only show up; they work harder and achieve more than they thought they could. Purpose gives them a stake in the work, creating a sense of agency and ownership. When a student believes their ideas matter, they are more likely to persist through difficulty, revise their work, ask questions, and take risks. When learning is purposeful, students engage in the kind of deep work that rigor demands. 

At Springpoint, we define four facets of purpose: 

• Agency empowers students with choice, voice, and leadership, cultivating confidence to navigate complexity.
• Relevance ensures that students know what and why they are learning, connecting content to their lives, cultures, and passions.
• Authenticity grounds learning in real-world issues and audiences, turning students into advocates and problem-solvers.
• Identity helps students understand themselves and others, nurturing pride, curiosity, and ethical awareness.

Our conception of purpose goes deeper than standalone concepts of “relevance” or “engagement.” While those terms often stop at making learning interesting or relatable, purpose centers students’ abundant abilities and lived experiences. Rather than seeking to merely capture attention, purpose cultivates belonging, meaning, and motivation, ensuring that every student sees their learning as a reflection of their own potential and ability to shape their world. Rigor challenges students to think deeply; purpose reminds them why it matters. Together, they have the power to transform learning.

Rigor without purpose will not lead to the kind of deep, meaningful learning that young people deserve. Purpose is the engine that powers rigor. We see every day that when young people understand why their work matters, they take intellectual risks, persist through complexity, and exceed expectations—because meaning expands their capacity. As schools and districts continue to invest in HQIM, the next step is ensuring those materials invite students to think deeply and care deeply. We invite educators to examine whether their curricular materials cultivate that purpose-driven rigor and strengthen the intentional connection between meaning, motivation, and deep thinking—so every student experiences learning that is both challenging and worth caring about.