This question should be the beacon for a school implementing such transformative change. Staff members can go back to this question to determine if a strategy truly supports the belief that all students in the school are learning at high levels, and staff won’t make excuses when multiple data points suggest things should be done differently.
Successful competency-based learning schools typically use data to identify groups of students who are not demonstrating the expected growth over the course of many years. When this happens, it makes sense that a school will need to take a hard look at its practices. This is a difficult and time-consuming process, and even after several years of implementation, it is important to continue to analyze multiple data points to ensure growth is occurring for all students.
Competency-based learning meets learners where they are and allows them to progress at their own speed along a developmental continuum.
Competency-based learning meets learners where they are and allows them to progress at their own speed along a developmental continuum.
Asking the question of why an educational institution exists will lead to learning for all. Remember, a competency-based learning model is based on what students learn, not what they earn. It wholly supports the mission and vision of becoming a system that focuses on learning and provides students every opportunity to demonstrate that learning at a high level.
Vision: What Must We Become to Accomplish Our Fundamental Purpose?
The vision question (DuFour et al., 2016) specifically asks teachers to focus on what needs to change. The school can determine the answer only through honest and open dialogue. The outcome of that dialogue provides inspiration not only to educators within the school but also the greater community.
In many schools going through this reflective process, adults in the school identify their focus on adult issues instead of what they should be expending their energy on—the student-centered issues that truly matter within their school. Once staff make that distinction, it becomes much easier to focus collective energy. Teachers will start to look at how the school can truly commit to learning for all.
In many successful U.S. competency-based learning districts, educators have made a concerted effort to deeply involve their communities in the systems change process. The Lindsay Unified School District in California asked the following five questions of its entire community to frame its shared purpose (or vision):
1. Why do we exist?
2. What are the values that will govern how we interact with each other?
3. What are the principles by which we will make decisions?
4. What is our vision for the future?
5. What is the description of our graduates? (Sturgis, 2015, p. 22)
Chugach School District is small, but spread out over twenty-two thousand miles in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Chugach began its journey to a competency-based education system in the mid-1990s and has made impressive growth since. Director and founder of MetisNet (www.metisnet.net) Chris Sturgis (2015) describes Chugach Superintendent Bob Crumley’s effort:
Chugach solidified the school board and district leadership commitment to a long-term strategy and created an intentional communication strategy that reinforced the idea that the system transformation will take several years. They also used data to intensify the sense of urgency by reminding people of the poor results in the traditional system as well as celebrating small steps of progress. Most importantly, they kept their community engaged so members could continue to deepen their understanding and celebrate alongside the students who were beginning to thrive and enjoy coming to school. (p. 64)
Superintendent Crumley was honest when communicating to the local school board and community; he made it very clear that the change process would take years, and that the traditional system resulted in poor outcomes, further amplifying the need for change. Sharing this upfront is incredibly important.
Similarly, John Freeman, superintendent for Pittsfield School District School Administrative Unit (SAU) 51 in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, describes his district’s move to competency-based learning as a process developed with the entire community, literally during a pig roast.
Practitioner Perspective
Virgel Hammonds, Chief Learning Officer, KnowledgeWorks; Former Principal, Lindsay Unified High School; and Former Superintendent, Regional School Unit 2
Though thousands of miles apart and culturally very different, Lindsay Unified School District (LUSD) in California and Regional School Unit 2 (RSU2) in Maine share a common vision for learning. Both aspire to empower students to be drivers of their education in a highly personalized, competency-based system. Each learning community’s journey is unique, but the vision is the same: to ensure every child’s dreams become reality.
In 2005, LUSD was at a crossroads. The city of Lindsay and the school district had made concerted efforts to improve and had seen some gains; however, the school and community both believed growth could be accelerated. School district and city leaders agreed to hold a series of community forums to discuss how LUSD could become a world-class district. Neighbors, businesses, civic and school employees (LUSD is the city’s largest employer), community organizations, clergy members, nonprofits, and students were invited to collaborate on how to make this vision a reality. Over the course of a year, the LUSD community established guiding principles for how they would serve and support one another. They established a commitment to lifting each stakeholder while holding all accountable to the vision of Empowering and Motivating for Today and Tomorrow.
Purposely, the community left out the words child, learner, student, and so on as they believed this vision was an opportunity to collectively support the evolution of everyone in or serving the community. At that point, the school district and city had come together to form a strong, collaborative union—a learning community.
Like any great school district, LUSD provided its instructional teams with strong professional development. With a large migrant population, the district placed heavy emphasis on literacy and instructional pedagogy. The staff focused on grading practices and had hard conversations about averaging and scoring work. Educators and support staff established collaborative teams to discuss strategies, data, and lessons learned in the classroom. Despite LUSD’s efforts, student gains were not as strong as the district desired. Staff believed the district, their learners, and the community could do more; however, the next step toward making the vision a reality was unclear.
In the summer of 2007, LUSD was finalizing its plans for a new high school—an opportunity to rethink learning strategies in the high school. The secondary team took an instructional audit and realized they had a passion for ensuring each learner’s success. The team always strived to support its learners both within the classroom and throughout the community. However, academic success did not reflect their efforts. As a team, members dug deeper. They asked one another, “How are you holding students accountable and to what expectations?” Realizing their expectations for teaching and learning varied greatly, the team members made a commitment to establishing common expectations for learning (designed competencies for all courses) and agreed to advance students solely based on mastery, not seat time. And, if that wasn’t a large enough lift, they created a new learning ecosystem where students were empowered and motivated to prove their mastery in highly personalized ways. These action steps were bold, but the team believed it (and its learners) was up to the challenge.
After daily process checks with staff, learners, and parents,