Part 2 of this series can be read at: Washington K–12 Return to Basics and Core Competencies – A Reform Plan For more than two decades, American education has accumulated reform after reform: standards-based education, testing reform, personalized learning, social-emotional learning, project-based learning, competency-based education, technology integration and, most recently, artificial intelligence. Many of these ideas have merit. The problem is that reform has too often been additive. We keep adding new objectives without removing old ones or asking the most basic question: Are students actually learning what they need to know? Washington should begin answering that question with … [Read more...]
Some old-school ideas that worked
From an article at https://1819news.com/culture/jeff-minick-some-old-school-ideas-that-worked Recently I bumbled into the 1962 Spotlight, the yearbook for Boonville High School in Piedmont, N.C. I was in fifth grade that year, and the elementary school, which was on the same property and ran from first through eighth grade, was included in the album. My perusal left me a bit thunderstruck thanks to the differences between then and now. Integration and Consolidation Schools in the South were still segregated that year. Boonville’s black school was no more than a mile or two from ours. Desegregation would begin within three years. Schools in Yadkin County were not yet … [Read more...]
Oregon Drops Essential Skills Requirements to Graduate High School, Citing Harm to ‘Marginalized Students’
Do you want the same to happen in Washington State? Original article at Western Journal Business owners, beware of students with high school diplomas from Oregon. They may not be able to read or do basic math. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, in 2020, the Oregon Department of Education suspended the “essential skills” requirement to accommodate students who had fallen behind because of school shutdowns and online learning — or so they said. The state changed letter grades to a pass-incomplete system. There were little to no attendance requirements, and the essential skills requirements were suspended, according to OPB. Although the suspension was supposed to … [Read more...]
Competency Based Education – CBE: The Trojan Horse that Will Destroy Public Education
What is CBE and why will it damage or destroy public education? It's Outcome Based Education. What's Outcome Based Education you ask? Outcome-based education (OBE) is an educational theory that bases each part of an educational system around goals (outcomes). By the end of the educational experience, each student should have achieved the goal. There is no single specified style of teaching or assessment in OBE; instead, classes, opportunities, and assessments should all help students achieve the specified outcomes.[1] The role of the faculty adapts into instructor, trainer, facilitator, and/or mentor based on the outcomes targeted. Outcome-based methods have been adopted in … [Read more...]