from LUSD website

We often think of innovation as an urban phenomena, a natural outgrowth of concentration of an industry, strong peer networks, and competition driving toward excellence.  However, Lindsay, California shows us that innovation can take place anywhere, even in a town of 12,000, beribboned by orange groves at the edge of California’s Central Valley.

The Lindsay Unified School District is well on their way to transforming their entire system to a personalized, performance-based system.  The conversations among district management teams vibrate with how they can fully implement a system in which all students are able to achieve.  Students are part of the process – taking advantage of the new possibilities and helping to solve problems as they pop up. The high school began implementation in 2009 and they are now beginning to roll it out to middle and elementary schools.

This case study will be in two parts. This initial post will be on the design elements and the second part will be on the big take-aways from my site visit.

Design Elements

Lindsay is partnering with the Reinventing Schools Coalition (RISC), so many of the design elements will be familiar to those who have visited Maine or Adams 50.

Overarching Design: LUSD describes their system as performance-based: “In a performance-based system, students work at their performance level and advance through the curriculum when they have demonstrated proficiency of the required knowledge or skills.” LUSD identifies the following benefits of a performance-based system. Note they use the phrase “learner” instead of student and “facilitator” instead of teacher. (more…)

Sandra Dop

Here is another opportunity to learn more about competency education.  The American Youth Policy Forum (a CompetencyWorks partner) and College and Career Readiness Center at the American Institutes for Research are offering a two-part webinar in June and July.

Two-Part Webinar Series on Policy Issues in Competency-Based Education

High performing education systems across the globe have based their work on a competency-based approach as opposed to the time-based system that we have in the United States. Currently, innovative states and districts around the country are beginning to challenge this outdated system and pursue an approach that calls for student demonstration of mastery. While many are currently interested in making such a shift, it is important to recognize that a host of policies, structures, and systems must be aligned. This two-part webinar series, co-hosted by the American Youth Policy Forum and the College and Career Readiness Center at the American Institutes for Research, will address major policy issues states and districts should be considering as they think about implementing competency-based education. (more…)

Ingenium Schools website

Is competency education a reform better suited for rural and outer ring suburbs than urban districts? That’s one of the questions I get asked a lot in the back of the room at meetings. No one ever asks that question during the regular sessions, leading me to think that the question goes beyond the size of the districts, and that the question is actually asking will competency education work in areas of concentrated poverty? Or perhaps, in our racially segregated country, people are using the code word “urban” to mean will it work for African-American students?

It is true that many of the district-wide reforms, supported by the work of the Reinventing Schools Coalition, started in rural districts and have taken hold in rural and suburban districts.  However, we now have a proof point that the very same model is taking root in south Los Angeles at Barack Obama Charter School (BOCS). And they are getting results – last year they had a 150 point gain in one year based on the California Standards Tests.   (more…)

Maine’s Center for Best Practices is building up a resource center that can help principals and educators understand the nuts and bolts of personalized, proficiency-based education.  As I was reading the latest case study based on RSU 20 (highlighted here), I was poking around in the resource section and found a document on the Basics for Assessment for Learning. For those of you who are asking the question “What does competency education look like in the classroom?” this may be helpful –  although if you are familiar with the work of Rick Stiggins, this won’t be anything new.

Essentially this describes the core practices of a proficiency-based classroom. You can see all the most important ingredients – clear, transparent targets; preparation for when learning isn’t taking place; strong emphasis on formative assessment; and empowered students.

Getting Started: Assessment for Learning


5 Keys to Quality Assessment

• Clear Purpose-Year 1
• Clear Targets-Year 1
• Sound Assessment Design-Year 2
• Good Communication-Year 2
• Student Involvement-Year 1 (more…)

Maine’s Center for Best Practices has released a new case study The Power of Principals — I consider it a must-read for anyone starting down the path of proficiency-based education.  It’s the story of how Regional School Unit 20 has advanced toward personalized, proficiency-based learning over the past three years. Here are my three big takeaways:

1) Three important questions to guide design.  The case study starts with the story of Searsport District High School. After losing its accreditation and getting a federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration grant, they began transitioning to standards-based reforms. In redesigning their school, Searsport District High had focused on two questions:

• What should kids who graduate from Searsport District High School know and be able to do when they graduate, and

• How shall we design curriculum, assessment, instruction, and reporting to ensure that they do know?

The case study explains: There was a third question, though, that they hadn’t yet addressed: What will we do if a student does not know what they need to know?

In response to this question, Searsport devised its system of academic interventions… The intervention system developed two branches:  skill-based interventions, for when the student was not getting a standard or learning target, and behavior-based interventions, for when the student was choosing not to complete assignments.  In both cases, it was seen as essential that the intervention occur as soon as possible after the need was recognized, certainly during the same day.  Check out the flow chart on page 5. (more…)

iNACOL is putting the final touches on the iNACOL’s Symposium competency education strand of workshops and sessions.  An incredible group of practitioners (some emphasizing online/blended learning and others not) are going to be leading sessions. In addition to the formal sessions there will be a CompetencyWorks lounge area near the exhibitor hall that you can use for informal discussions and meet-ups.  In fact, we’ll be meeting there Sunday evening during the opening reception just so we can introduce ourselves (thanks to Tom Willis Cornerstone Charter Schools who called me and said we needed this to happen.) The iNACOL Symposium is a big, exciting meeting,  so knowing each other’s faces early on will make a huge difference.

Although we know things always change, here is how the competency education strand looks now:

Sunday Pre-Conference

Design Choices for Competency Education will be for experienced innovators and newbies alike. We’ll walk through all the different choices districts and schools make, sharing what worked, what you learned, and what you might do differently.

Session 1

Overview of Competency Education – What is it, what are the models, and who is doing it? – Susan Patrick, iNACOL and Chris Sturgis, MetisNet

Session 2

The Building Blocks of Competency-Based Learning: Competencies, Assessment, Learning, and Grading – Rose Colby, Education Consultant

Session 1 and 2 (Workshop)

Transparency = Ownership: A Model for Student-Centered Learning – Alison Hramiec, Boston Day and Evening Academy (more…)

Go swimming or write a post for CWorks!

It’s getting warmer, and it’s time to think about what we want to accomplish this summer.  For principals and teachers who don’t have a moment to themselves during the school year, we hope that you will put aside a little time to write a post for CompetencyWorks about what you learned about competency education this year so your colleagues can learn from your experiences.  As always, if you have examples and resources, we can put them on the wiki.

We want you to write about what is important to you. But if you need a few ideas to get you thinking, below are some of the questions for educators and principals that have been raised during the year.

Add your questions in the comments section; maybe we can find just the right person to answer them.

For educators:

• How do you manage a personalized, proficiency-based classroom? How is it different in comparison to a traditional classroom?

• How do you give students voice and choice?  What do you need to do to make that happen? What is a capacity matrix?

• What do you do when a student doesn’t have the prerequisite knowledge for your class? What happens if a student just doesn’t seem to be reaching proficiency?

• What do you do when a student isn’t keeping up with the “teacher pace”?

• How do you determine if a student is proficient in a learning target? Isn’t there a lot of testing in competency-based education?

• Do you have to focus on one learning target at a time? Is there enough time to do that in a class?

• Is there anything different in how you support ELL and special education students in proficiency-based classrooms?

For principals:

• How do you keep grouping from becoming tracking?

• What type of supports do educators need to succeed in a competency-based environment?

• I keep hearing about a “growth mindset.” How does this change the job of the principal and the operation of a school?

• How have you changed your operations (scheduling, budgeting, metrics, etc.) to support competency-based learning?

• Have you been seeing results? What might we expect to see in terms of student achievement and other indicators if we start using competency-based approaches?

• What are parents’ greatest concerns and how do you respond to them?

Thanks to everyone who contributes a post. You are making a huge difference by sharing your knowledge.   We know transparency is one of the core values of  the competency-based approached. We need to bring more and more transparency to our learning of how to implement competency-based education as well.

The question came up the other day, what are the best 2-3 short readings for someone that hasn’t been exposed to the idea of competency education to read?  Susan and I were talking about this and we came up with the following (below).

We’d like to know what you use to engage people in thinking deeply about competency-based, proficiency-based, performance-based, or mastery-based learning.  We are keeping a Recommended Reading List up to date…so please forward helpful resources to us.

Getting Your Feet Wet Reading List

1) To Learn About What’s Wrong with the Traditional System. 

In The One World School House, Sal Khan provides two easy to read chapters containing historical insight and information about the fundamental flaws in the traditional system. In  the chapter “The Prussian Model,” he describes how the structure of today’s schooling developed with its grade levels, calendar, semesters, and daily schedules. In “Swiss Cheese Learning,” he outlines the flaws in the problem, emphasizing that even our A+ students end up advancing with gaps in their knowledge that may create significant challenges later on. (more…)

With the help of our Advisory Board, Susan Patrick and I have been trying to sketch out a) which competencies are needed to implement competency education and b) what a core set of trainings would look like to support state, district, and school personnel in developing these competencies. We don’t have funding for this, nor do we know of anyone else who has funding – but we think it is important to put these ideas out there as states, districts, and schools charge ahead, and we need to be able to make the best thinking and best resources available.

We have been thinking about creating a set of “badges” based on a framework within which we can capture the essential knowledge and skills. Depending on your role, what you will need to know and be able to do is different.

Our rough draft ideas are below – but we know it’s not quite right.  First the language needs to be inspiring and capture the spirit and joy of learning. Second, the overarching framework doesn’t work quite right. We also have a long way to go to get these key questions right.  We’d love to hear your ideas about how to break this up in a meaningful way for schools and educators. In fact, if you have already started to create a set of competencies  or a badging process for the adults, please tell us about it as we might be able to build off of your efforts.

Initial Draft of Competency Education Badges

Expert (4): I’ve had successful experiences in competency education that produced increased achievement for students and can support my peers.
Experienced (3): I’ve implemented it – it may not be perfect but I’m learning from my mistakes.
Novice (2): I’m working on planning and early implementation right now. Wow I have a lot of questions.
Explorer (1): I’m becoming familiar with the concepts, implications, and design choices.

1.    Engagement and Communication

• What is competency education?
• Why is it important?
• How to engage educators, students, families, and broader communication?
• How to create an engagement plan? (more…)

This is my best creative hat

Every day there seems to be one more webinar on grading. This is great that more information supporting competency education is becoming available. However, my concern is that they are not contextualized within a school culture or school-wide reform.

Earlier this week in a conversation, Rich DeLorenzo pointed that if one teacher uses proficiency-based grading and the teacher down the hall doesn’t, students, and possibly parents as well, are going to feel a real tension. One of the reasons is that in proficiency-based models we are willing to have the hard conversations “I know Bobby is in 4^th grade but he still is reading at 2^nd grade level”.  That conversation isn’t likely to come up in traditional grading as long as Bobby does his homework, attends school regularly, and demonstrates “good” behavior in  class.  DeLorenzo emphasized “When we eliminate the bell curve we change the goal of education and the pedagogy.”  Is the principal ready to support both kinds of educational models — one focused on making sure that students learn and the other that student do what is expected by the teacher?

When we eliminate the bell curve we change the goal of education and the pedagogy.

Grading, as it is so deeply related to assessment, is going to be one of the big things to change in a school.  However, it needs to be part of a school-wide change.   Grading isn’t a stand-alone practice – personalized classroom management strategies, student voice and choice, adaptive instruction, and transparency are all parts of  redesigning core operations of schools.

So tune in — but put your best analytic and creative hat on while you are listening. If you want to do move foward on proficiency-based grading, ask yourself what are the other changes that are going to need to happen in your school?

Webinars on Grading Past and Present

Today — Proficiency Scales for the Common Core, Marzano Research Laboratory, May 23, 2013 | 4:00 p.m. EDT

Wednesday, May 29, 2013: League of Innovative School Webinar on Proficiency-Based Learning Simplified: Best Practices in Grading and Reporting  | 3:00–4:00 PM EST. Register here.

Thursday, May 30, 2013: Standards-Based Grading and Assessing Student Mastery of Content. REL-NEI’s Northeast College and Career Readiness Research Alliance hosts this Bridge Webinar with Dr. Thomas Guskey to explore emergent research on proficiency-based leraning and graduation requirements, a new approach to assessing student learning and reporting on student progress.|  12:30–2:00 p.m. ET Register here.