Competency Based Systems

Seattle Public Schools, in fact all Washington state school districts, are working, more like blindly groping, towards awarding credit based on competency. We already have a policy for this, and the credit policy is due for revision over the summer and fall to allow students at Cleveland to earn full credit for less than 150 hours of planned instruction. If they don't update the policy in time, then Cleveland will have to be an Alternative Learning Experience school and the state will only pay 85% of the usual funding.

I think that the District should be more ambitious and should re-write their credit policy so that all of our ALEs will be able to award regular credits and get more funding.

Either way, competency based credit is coming and I think we should all learn a little something about how that works. Here is an article about it. 10 Elements Towards Eliminating the Batch-Print System by Tom Vander Ark was originally published on CompetencyWorks.

Please, let's not get worked up about the author and his associations. Instead, let's just read the article for its content. It's just an introduction to the idea. This is coming and it is good that it is coming. We should know about it.

Comments

TechyMom said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
5/24/12, 1:02 PM
TechyMom said…
I know several people who have gone through programs at Western Governor's University, which uses this approach. They've been very happy with it.

WGU Student Experience
5/24/12, 1:03 PM
Charlie Mas said…
I myself am pursuing a degree with WGU
5/24/12, 3:28 PM
Sahila said…
Gerald Coles: Standards education narrowly defines reading as the extraction of information from a text, thereby discouraging thinking that extends beyond that extraction.
5/24/12, 7:36 PM
Jan said…
Sahila -- I only know a little about Gerald Coles, but I have a hard time believing that the osrt of competency based system used by WGU is what Coles is arguing against. I know that he is against phonics (as opposed to whole language) to the extent that phonics is held out as the holy grail of reading systems. But I cannot make the connection your post seems to imply. Is there more somewhere?
5/24/12, 7:54 PM
Sahila said…
@Jan.... Gerald Coles writes: Educating to Compete in the "Global Economy": Creating Idiot Savantism http://bit.ly/LICaEF
5/24/12, 10:54 PM
Sahila said…
Standards Based Grading - Horse Heaven Hills Middle School Students Respond Kenneworth School District - Standards Based Grading
5/25/12, 8:08 AM
Sahila said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
5/25/12, 8:13 AM
Sahila said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
5/25/12, 8:22 AM
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