Second, here’s where it
starts to get a little wonky (but really interesting):
(The district’s Glossary could be helpful: http://melroseschools.com/school-committee/agendas-and-minutes/glossary-instructional-terms/)
Competency Based Education
(CBE) is a teaching and learning vision that the Supt. feels is very important
for our district to explore. This is not the “tracking” of old; it’s a way to bring
all students to mastery in each content area, but they won’t necessarily do that
at the same pace for each of those content areas. It incorporates Universal
Design for Learning (UdL) which is a framework of principles for curriculum
development and is a significant change in the profession of teaching, to the
point where teachers may worry that they won’t cover all the required material,
or that letting students take a more active role in their own learning will
result in poor student performance. Teachers are working hard at implementing
this practice, and are gaining confidence in their own skills as they watch
students own more responsibility for learning and achieve success as a result.
One consideration
regarding implementing CBE is how to meet state requirements around District
Determined Measures (DDM’s) that are measures of student learning, growth, and
achievement, and in most districts (including Melrose) they come in the form of
common assessments (i.e. measures of student learning that are the same across
a grade level or course). Rather than using common assessments, CBE looks to
UdL’s principle of Multiple Means of Expression (MME), meaning that students
select from a teacher-driven list of ways to demonstrate their competence. (For
example, students could take a test and/or present a portfolio and/or submit a
journal, etc.) The “common” part is that all students must attain competency. In
Melrose, a great deal of work has been done on the development of common
assessments, and there is now better understanding and agreement among our
educators about what competency means and looks like. That work built the
foundation that allows the district to consider evolving to a CBE framework.
There is another, more
technical question to work through, and that is related to DDM’s and their
impact on the “student impact rating (SIR).” (A SIR is a state mandated
determination of an educator’s impact on student learning, and is ultimately
part of their performance evaluation. More info here: http://www.doe.mass.edu/edeval/sir/.)
One element of the SIR is MCAS/PARCC, but only 17% of educators participate in
those standardized tests the way the content areas and grades align with the
testing, which is why the state required DDM’s in the first place. The good
news is that the state may begin to back off DDM’s, to some extent because of the
newly authorized federal education law called “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA),
which will incorporate “soft measures” of teachers’ impact on student learning
(like graduation, attendance, and suspension rates; depression screening
results; etc.). Superintendents agree that DDM’s should be used less, but
because so much work has been done on them, it’s hard to just abandon them; but
this potential shift may make it more likely that CBE could be implemented while
still adhering to state regulations.
Data use remains an
important element of ensuring that teaching and learning practices are
effective. Melrose is fortunate to have a great data specialist, and we also
have been able to take advantage of some free data consulting services; the
consultant is working with the data specialist to employ the data we’ve
collected even more effectively in the interest of improving student outcomes.
The Supt. shared that “data is more about the quality of instruction [than an
isolated reflection of a student’s performance].”
In sum, exploration of CBE
should include navigating state regulations around measuring student performance,
and then translating them within a framework that’s acceptable to the state in
order to comply with regulations around educator evaluation (even as the
federal government may begin to offer more flexibility in this area).
Supt. Taymore talked about
CBE being an intersection of Understanding by Design (UBD), which is a
curriculum mapping tool that focuses on teaching for understanding, and UdL,
ultimately creating a Venn Diagram. Melrose teachers and administrators have
spent a great deal of time and effort learning about these educational tools
and practices, and also developing and using common assessments, raising
standards, employing more rigor, supporting student centered learning, and
using data to better instruct students. Last fall, Supt. Taymore held a public
forum on CBE to gather community feedback, and following a positive response,
the School Committee voted to authorize her to create a CBE Task Force to study
the issues around implementing this type of vision in our schools. A Citywide
PTO parent, who is a member of the Melrose CBE Task Force, stated that she is “so
impressed with the level of expertise” in the group (which includes a variety
of individuals with state, private foundation, and other significant credentials).
Supt. Taymore believes that Melrose students deserve a chance at CBE, but there
is much that the Task Force must explore to vet this significant a shift. She
noted that it must be Melrose-based, not copied from another city or town. The
Task Force has just started their work (they’ve met once), and will tentatively
report their initial findings in late spring or summer.
