What’s New in K-12 Competency-Based Education?

School Designs

• Pittsfield School District shares their story of transformation toward student-centered learning in this video.
• Chicago’s CICS West Belden embarked on a journey to implement personalized, competency-based learning. Learn more about their model here.
• Navin Elementary School in Marysville Exempted Village School District is committed to personalized learning and doing what’s best for kids. Read an article and watch a video explaining their model.
• Amidst opioid addiction and plummeting morale, learn how this one elementary school reinvented itself.
• Some schools use changes in grading to begin shifting the focus on helping all students reach proficiency. Here is a story from North Carolina.

Assessments

• iNACOL published a guest blog on assessment literacy to support competency-based systems and other deeper learning efforts, written by Scott Marion. (iNACOL hosted a webinar on this topic—you can access the archived version here.)
• The latest volume of Voices in Urban Education (VUE) explores performance assessments and fostering the learning of teachers and students.

Teacher Perspectives

• When first learning about competency education, teachers often have a host of questions: “Do I plan a different lesson plan for each child?” “How do I manage all the levels?” This article addresses these questions about the practicalities of teaching in competency-based learning systems.
• A D.C. teacher laid out a bold vision to improve poor student performance in this article. Educators and readers of Washington City Paper have since agreed and believe personalized learning should replace traditional schooling.
• A high school English teacher penned a response to a recent article in The Federalist which warns against competency education.

Thought Leadership

• Sajan George makes the case for competency-based education for millennials and the future workforce—and describes CBE as “a generational poverty eradication machine.”
• Adriana Martinez of CCSSO reflects on navigating the murky waters of educational change and highlights the work of CCSSO’s Innovation Lab Network.

Case Studies

• Education Reimagined shared a two-blog case study on Colorado’s Mesa County Valley School District 51. Blog one introduces their model and journey, and blog two offers a Q&A with Superintendent Steve Schultz.
• Education Reimagined also published a two-blog case study on Georgia’s Henry County Schools. Blog one introduces their school, and blog two shares a Q&A with Special Projects Coordinator Karen Perry.

Student Voice

• A student at McComb School District shares her voice on what student-centered learning means, and reflects on what this system has done for her as a learner.

State Policy Updates

• By 2021, students graduating from Maine high schools must show they have mastered specific skills to earn a high school diploma. Maine is the first state to pass such a law, though the idea of valuing skills over credits is increasingly popular around the country. This article explores the future of proficiency-based education in Maine.
• Pennsylvania passed legislation establishing an alternative pathway for demonstrating that students have graduation level skills other than taking the Keystone end-of-year state exams.
• This article tracks recent legislation in North Dakota, Utah, Illinois and Idaho as states expand plans to include personalized learning.
• Six Utah school districts and seven Utah charter schools joined a new competency-based education pilot program which will begin its exploratory phase in year one.

Resources

• The Nellie Mae Education Foundation and AIR conducted a literature review and released How Family, School, and Community Engagement Can Improve Student Achievement and Influence School Reform. The report finds a demonstrable connection between family engagement, school improvement and student outcomes.
• In the Center for Collaborative Education’s latest white paper, A Vision for Personalized Learning in Massachusetts, Dan French and Diana Lebeaux reveal how Massachusetts’ academic excellence belies deeply rooted achievement gaps for under-served students.

High Reliability Schools

• Marzano Research Labs has a program to certify where schools are in terms of the five levels of High Reliability Schools with competency-based education as the fifth and highest level.
• Here is an article on Decatur County Schools and their efforts to improve schools.

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