We should all be wary of any technology or innovation that boasts too loudly to be the silver bullet to save a crumbling system. However, I am deeply intrigued by the potential of competency-based learning to address systematic problems in our public schools. Leaders of competency-based learning, also know as mastery-based learning are quickly finding positive results by providing student centered instruction where the learning is fixed (standards aligned), but time is not (students move at their own pace to meet learning targets).
Up in my neck of the woods the need for new models of teaching and learning has reached a crisis level. Here's an excerpt from an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune earlier this month:
The statistics paint a stark picture: Minnesota has the lowest high school graduation rates for Latino and Native students in the nation. Put simply: no one does it worse. That 58 percent of third-graders are proficient in reading masks the fact that 87 percent of white third-graders are proficient while just 36 percent of Latino students are. A shocking 12 percent of African-American fifth-graders are proficient in math.
Minnesota Public Radio also gave supportive attention to this issue here, highlighting efforts to increase Minnesota teachers' cultural competency. According to the story airing March 20th:
The state Department of Education estimates that less than 4 percent of Minnesota teachers are people of color. Yet more than a quarter of Minnesota's students are nonwhite.
Clearly radical systems change is needed. In Minneapolis Public Schools where graduation rates of non-white students is among the worst in the nation, the approach to addressing the achievement gap is focused instruction. It is also known as managed instruction. Let's think about that name for a minute...managed instruction. After conversations with teachers in the district this year, it appears that what is being managed is the teacher, not student learning. No one will argue that data driven, differentiated, standards aligned instruction is good teaching. However, the missing component in the focused instruction equation is the student. Focused instruction is not designed as a student centered instructional approach. It is designed as a systems control mechanism, so administrators and upper level district management can use terms like "consistency" and "equity" and "fidelity" to stay in compliance with RtI and NCLB, and to quantify value-added teacher evaluations. Requiring all schools to use focused instruction prohibits any other approach. President Obama is promoting entrepreneurial thinking to move our nation forward. However, in Minneapolis Public Schools (and St. Paul Public Schools), innovation is not welcome.
Like focused instruction, competency based learning is standards aligned, differentiates for all students, and is data driven. Unlike focused instruction, competency-based learning is student centered. Unlike focused instruction, competency-based learning requires massive systems change, moving away from the failed factory school model. Clearly there is major heavy lifting to move to a competency-based learning model. That is a fair criticism. But it is being done in large systems, and given the massive potential, and tragic failure rate for non-white students in Minnesota, we can't afford not to.
Competency-based learning is getting a lot of attention, gaining traction and reaching broader audiences as evident by recent articles in Forbes by Innosight Institute founder and co-author of Disrupting Class Micheal Horn, and through NBC and CBS. District and state wide models of adoption are emerging in New Hampshire, Oregon, Alaska and Massachusetts. Recognizing that legislated "seat time" requirements are impeding progress towards implementation, states like Michigan and Ohio have changed the seat time requirement. Horn and other supporters observe that competency-based learning increases student motivation, and increases teacher capacity to meet new challenges brought on by the Common Core State Standards. That seems like a win-win to me.
Fortunately, a number of students in Minneapolis will have the opportunity to have a student centered learning experience through a competency based model. New and highly innovative schools like Venture Academy opening in Minneapolis in the fall of 2013, will meet the challenge of closing the achievement gap through a competency-based and personalized blended learning model. I am excited to see the results of this effort, hoping for scalability so we can get learning right the first time every time for every child.
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