What’s New in K-12 Competency Education?

ESEA Movement

• iNACOL released a statement of support to the Senate HELP Committee on the reauthorization of ESEA. Check out this blog post for key highlights of the bill.
• Last Monday, 23 organizations signed a letter to the leadership of the Senate HELP Committee to support an innovative assessment pilot program in ESEA.
• To learn more, check out this blog post by Maria Worthen, this CompetencyWorks issue brief, and this report jointly published by iNACOL and KnowledgeWorks.

New Designs

• Building 21 is one of three new innovative high schools designed to transform education. This article describes its one-to-one technology program, data-enriched feedback loops, and more.
• Amy Crawford of The Boston Globe wrote Bringing a charter-school approach to college, which discusses alternative paths toward higher education, and how College for America and Match Beyond fit into the higher education scheme.
• Colorado’s Mesa County Valley School District joined a pilot program allowing the community to provide input regarding curriculum as the schools shift toward new learning models.

Thoughts in the Field

• Ronald A. Wolk provides a commentary titled Competency-Based Education Is Working.
• KQED Mindshift’s Katrina Schwartz wrote an article describing what schools need in order to enable competency-based learning, addressed within the context of the CompetencyWorks brief, Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts.
• Mark Lanier wrote Riley Creek teachers read a lot into proficiency, which articulates why competency-based education and project-based learning are helpful for K-12 student learning.
• Bob Sornson’s article Education in Michigan: When you are riding a horse and it dies, aptly describes the failings of our current educational system and proposes alternatives, such as competency-based education, particularly within a Michigan context.

News in New Hampshire

• The US Department of Education is allowing four New Hampshire school districts to proceed with the PACE pilot project, allowing locally designed assessments to replace some statewide standardized testing. An EdWeek article also describes this in detail.
• New Hampshire’s success in competency education has spurred interest in other states, such as Kentucky, Colorado, and Iowa, as explained in this article.

Resources

• 2Revolutions, Educause, and Next Generation Learning Challenges released Building a Culture of Innovation in Higher Education: Design & Practice for Leaders, which provides a framework for sustaining a culture of innovation in higher education.
• CCSSO’s ILN resource titled Innovation in Action: State Pathways for Advancing Student-Centered Learning, highlights the ILN Logic Model and provides state examples.
• Students at the Center, Jobs for the Future, and the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents created a partnership and developing the following three professional development resources: Self-Regulation Professional Development Module, Motivation Professional Development Module, and Engagement Professional Development Module.

For more frequent updates, news, and big ideas in the field, follow us on twitter at @CompetencyWorks.