Education Week - June 4, 2014 - 14

INDUSTRY & INNOVATION > Tracking business trends and emerging models in K-12
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Initiative Aims to Bring Competency-Based Learning to Life
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opers, piano instructors, and others
who sign up to be mentors will
agree to work with schools to develop
what the state calls "extended
learning opportunities," or elos, at
their organizations where students
can earn academic credit. They also
will promise to serve as one more
adult checking in on those students'
academic choices, listening to their
problems, and championing their
progress.
The state's largest district, here in
Manchester, signed on earlier this
year. And Mr. Bramante is hoping
more will follow suit.
Abolishing the Carnegie unit-a
standard measure of time a student
must spend in class to earn credit
toward a diploma-in 2005 made it
possible for New Hampshire schools
to allow students to move through
school at their own pace and receive
academic credit for skills learned
through internships, community
service, independent study, performing
arts groups, and online courses.
But Mr. Bramante and other observers
say many New Hampshire
schools still have not embraced this
freedom to redesign learning.
"I've worked on enough education
redesign projects to know that just
because you change the regulations
doesn't mean that the thing becomes
a reality," he said.
Debra Livingston, the superintendent
of the 17,000-student Manchester
district, welcomes the help
from Mr. Bramante.
"We're really in the infant stage
of our extended learning opportunities,
and if we're going to grow this
idea and grow this opportunity for
students, we can't do it alone," she
said. "We have to have people from
our community be directly involved
with our schools and our students."
Districts will not have to pay for
the services provided through 10,000
Mentors, but they must agree to support
the initiative by obtaining a letter
from the local school board saying
it endorses the effort; letting teachers
know about the mentors; and listing
outside learning opportunities offered
by mentors in its schools' course catalogs.
Measuring
Competencies
Replacing so-called seat time with
mastery requirements for credit in
New Hampshire was a big win for
advocates of competency-based
education. To date, no other state
has replaced seat time altogether,
although many states are enabling
competency-based learning in
other ways. In all, 42 states have
policies that give schools flexibility
in awarding credit to students, according
to the Carnegie Foundation
for the Advancement of Teaching,
based in Stanford, Calif.
Some states simply allow districts
or students to request waivers from
time-based requirements and demonstrate
skills through a portfolio
or test. Thirty states, the Carnegie
Foundation says, including Iowa,
Kentucky, and Oregon, allow districts
to award credit for either seat
time or proficiency.
New Hampshire's school districts
and charter schools, however, were
free to interpret and implement
the 2005 rule change as they saw
fit, with every district instructed to
develop its own descriptions of the
skills and knowledge, called "competencies,"
needed to earn a high
school diploma. Schools were required
to begin measuring students'
progress using those competencies
in the 2008-09 academic year.
New Role for Teachers
Some districts defined competencies
in a way that allowed schools
to continue teaching as they always
have, moving through material at
the same pace and measuring competencies
by performance on end-ofterm
exams.
According to a 2012 survey from
the New Hampshire Department
of Education, at least 15 percent of
public high schools statewide had
not allowed students to earn credit
through extended learning opportunities
outside of school. At the
55 public high schools that said
they did, it's unclear how much the
option was encouraged.
A 2011 study of the implementation
of elos at four schools in New
Hampshire, conducted by the University
of Massachusetts Donohue
Institute, found that factors slowing
the proliferation of personalized
learning projects included course
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | June 4, 2014 | www.edweek.org
competencies that weren't easily
fulfilled by elos and some teachers'
reluctance to participate.
Teachers weren't always comfortable
assuming the new role of facilitating
learning happening outside
the classroom versus providing content
themselves, or were unsure of
how to assess elos, the study found.
One school that Mr. Bramante
and others say has done an exemplary
job of embracing competencybased
learning, including elos,
is Pittsfield Middle High School in
New Hampshire.
Almost a quarter of students at
the 255-student school spend part
of the school day, after-school hours,
or summertime earning credits
through activities outside regular
classes, such as assisting dentists,
accompanying midwives, designing
websites, volunteering in kindergarten
classrooms, or working at local
newspapers. They earn both core
and elective credits for such activities
once they produce a portfolio of
work and make a presentation that
demonstrates they've learned certain
skills and concepts.
Pittsfield, which in 2008 was one
of New Hampshire's lowest-performing
schools on state tests, used
grants from the Nellie Mae Education
Foundation and the federal
School Improvement Grant program
to redesign itself, with input from its
community, as a school that offers
personalized education. It built additional
professional-development
time into its schedule, which it used
to train teachers in how to run a
competency-based classroom and facilitate
outside learning. It also hired
a full-time elo coordinator.
Quite a few teachers left after
the redesign and were replaced by
teachers willing to work in this new
way. State data show that dropouts
have declined and the district reports
that college acceptances have
increased since Pittsfield embraced
competency-based learning.
A Personal Mission
To sell 10,000 Mentors, Mr. Bramante
has put many miles on his
green Fiat over the past year, driving
all over the state to talk to
educators, school board members,
and business leaders. As he explained
to a group of executives and
entrepreneurs attending a panel
discussion on prosperity in Bedford,
N.H., on a recent May morning, his
interest in reinventing education is
personal.
Growing up in New Hampshire in
the 1960s, he was not a good student,
Mr. Bramante, 67, told them.
"School taught me that I wasn't
very bright," he said. "Life taught
me that they were wrong."
Mr. Bramante, a former middle
school science teacher, left education
to run a store, Daddy's Junky
Music, which he grew into a chain
of 20 stores in seven states. His
business success landed him on the
cover of Inc. magazine and generated
numerous invitations to sit on
public policy committees.
Then-Gov. Craig Benson, a Republican,
appointed Mr. Bramante
in 2003 to head the state board of
education, a post he held for two
years. (In the 1990s, he also was a
Entrepreneur Fred
Bramante, left, meets in
Concord, N.H., with Tom
Raffio, the current
chairman of the state
board of education.
Mr. Bramante recently
launched the 10,000
Mentors initiative to
help bring real-world
learning opportunities
to students statewide
that would translate into
high school credit.
Andrea Morales for Education Week
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Education Week - June 4, 2014

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