This post first appeared on CompetencyWorks on November 26, 2018.  What is student agency? The standard reply in our field these days is “voice and choice.” Certainly, “voice and choice” is a pithy memorable phrase. It also has value in that creating opportunity for students to have voice and choice in their daily lives is […]

This post first appeared on CompetencyWorks on November 2, 2018.  We made a mistake in the first few years of CompetencyWorks. We simply underestimated the importance of culture – the underlying values, beliefs, rituals, and relationships that shape an organization or community – in making the transition to a competency-based system. Many schools and districts […]

Today, iNACOL released the updated CompetencyWorks map for 2019, a snapshot of K-12 competency education state policy across the United States. The map was last updated in September 2018.   You can download a copy of the map here. We have categorized the states as “Advanced,” “Developing,” “Emerging,” and “Not Yet” on the map to […]

This blog was originally posted on CompetencyWorks on October 11, 2018.  iNACOL and CompetencyWorks released the book Quality Principles for Competency-Based Education. This book, which started out as a paper and expanded into a primer on competency education with the help of Katherine Casey, completes the collection of papers developed as part of the National Summit […]

Last week, the College Board announced the Environmental Context Dashboard, a new tool to support admissions decisions with a composite score to accompany SAT results that could provide admissions officers with more information about students’ educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Quickly dubbed the “Adversity Score,” the announcement set off wide-ranging debates in education circles, notably at […]

Competency-based education, also referred to as mastery-based, proficiency-based or performance-based education, is a system of education designed to equitably ensure all students develop the success skills they will need for college, career and life. This webinar will answer the most frequently asked questions about why competency-based education is important, how it relates to personalization, what […]

Recently, we attended the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) annual National Summit for Educational Equity (NSEE) and had the opportunity to reflect on how to advance equity through partnerships with career and technical education (CTE). According to NAPE, the NSEE “brings together the researchers and practitioners in educational equity to build capacity, knowledge, […]

Until we get equality in education, we won’t have an equal society. – Justice Sonia Sotomayor Today marks 65 years since the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the seminal civil rights ruling outlawing school segregation. Since the ruling, American public school systems have wrestled with how to […]

The webinar will begin by setting some policy context about key trends in educator credentialing, before delving into a specific case study of an innovative new Master’s program developed in partnership between online learning leader Southern New Hampshire University and education design lab 2Revolutions. Participants will explore how this program seeks to ensure educators experience […]

This blog was originally posted on CompetencyWorks on August 28, 2018.  Two realities almost always arise when we engage in systemic change. First, while the change is framed as universally beneficial, it’s almost always disruptive and frequently gives rise to new and additional concerns. Second, implementation never goes as smoothly as planned. This certainly has happened […]