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

The Barr Foundation announced eight grantees redesigning their New England high school model to transcend the school walls and blend the lines between school, college, career, and the community in order to help all students develop the competencies required for a 21st-century definition of student success. Grantees include:

• Boston Educational Development Fund, Inc., Boston, MA, for the redesign of TechBoston Academy.
• Boys & Girls Club of Manchester, Manchester, NH, for the redesign of Manchester West High School.
• Center for Collaborative Education, Boston, MA, for the redesign of Somerville High School.
• Great Schools Partnership, Inc., Portland, ME, for the redesign of North County Union High School (VT), Blackstone Academy Charter School (RI), and Nokomis Regional High School (ME).
• Manchester Public Schools, Manchester, CT, for the redesign of Manchester High School.
• New Haven Ecology Project, Inc., New Haven, CT, for the redesign of Common Ground High School.
• Providence After School Alliance, Inc., Providence, RI, for the redesign of 360 High School and Juanita Sanchez High School.
• Winooski School District, Winooski, VT, for the redesign of Winooski Middle High School.

Thought Leadership

• Nicholas Donohue of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation wrote an article: The Pathway to True Readiness Lies in Student-Centered Learning.
• As part of an Ask a Researcher series, Superintendent of Sitka School District (Alaska) Mary Wegner asked researcher Gretchen Brion-Meisels: What are the most effective practices for facilitating youth leadership in schools? How can schools support demographically diverse students to lead?
• Students at the Center Distinguished Fellows Lori McEwen and Arthur Baraf introduce a student-centered learning syllabus. Here is the syllabus itself.
• This article by Michael Horn explores new research on whether technology is good or bad for learning.
• Thomas Arnett of the Christensen Institute looks at education’s white whale: school improvement.

Videos to Engage Stakeholders

• Todd Rose explains why the bell curve is nonsense.
• Jet Cockpits and The End of Average, inspired by Todd Rose’s book.
• NPR published a special series on Raising Kings: A Year of Love and Struggle at Ron Brown College Prep.
• Here are videos from New Hampshire Public Radio on Does Competency-Based Education Make the Grade?

Equity and CBE

• KnowledgeWorks published a blog on how competency-based education systems can lead to more equitable classrooms.
• Marcos Lucio Popovich of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation writes about understanding the root causes of inequities. Nellie Mae is inviting districts from New England to respond to a request for proposals that asks them to identify the systemic and school level barriers that perpetuate gaps in college and career readiness based on race, language, special education status, and income, and target interventions that appropriately address such barriers. To learn more about the grant fund, read through the request for proposals.

State Policy Updates

• American Institutes for Research examined state plans submitted under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Here is a summary of the state profiles.
• Colorado school districts are working to implement new graduation guidelines to make high school diplomas more meaningful. District and school leaders connected at a recent Summit to explore student-centered pathways.
• Michigan State School Superintendent Brian Whiston visited Fraser Public School District to see how competency-based education systems work.
• There are many entry points for states looking to transition to personalized, competency-based systems. This article highlights a few steps states have taken to fuel personalized learning.
• This article looks at Vermont’s statewide personalized learning initiative.

iNACOL released a series of policy issue briefs:

• State Policy & K-12 Competency-Based Education
• Redefining Student Success: Profile of a Graduate
• Redesigning Systems of Assessments to Support Student-Centered Learning

Resources

• KnowledgeWorks released, Dispelling the Myths: Frequently Asked Questions About Competency-Based Education.
• Wendy Surr and Sam Redding published a report, Staying Shallow or Going Deep? A Deeper, More Personal Look at What It Means to Be Competent.
• Transcend published Defining Graduate Aims: A Collection of Research and Resources for Design Teams.
• Karin Hess wrote a new book, A Local Assessment Toolkit to Promote Deeper Learning: Transforming Research Into Practice.
• The Lumina Foundation released State Policy Considerations for Aligning State Competency-Based Education Efforts Across Education Levels in Arizona.
• Ed Tech Specialists in Michigan have made their webinar series on competency-based learning and blended learning available to the general public. You can hear discussions with Rose Colby, Michael Burde, Brian Stack and Jonathan Vander Els, Ephraim Weisstein and Michael Horn here.

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