Education Next – Karla Phillips and Carri Schneider
“Our nation’s traditional, time-based education system advances students based primarily on their age, regardless of their depth of understanding. By not ensuring mastery, the current system pushes students forward who are not yet ready, leaving them with gaps in critical knowledge or fundamental skills that must be remedied later. At the same time, the traditional system often prevents students from engaging more deeply in their interests, excelling when they are ready, or pursuing additional academic challenges. Over time, this outdated education system repeatedly fails far too many students. A different approach gaining interest is competency-based education (CBE), a system where students advance to higher levels of learning when they demonstrate mastery of concepts and skills regardless of time, place, or pace. (Note: The terms competency, proficiency and mastery are often used interchangeably.).”(more)