The State of Proficiency-Based Education in the 21st Century
Modern education is steadily moving away from traditional learning models, where students progress based on time spent in school rather than actually learning. Instead, proficiency-based education is rapidly becoming the norm — a norm that uses a student-centered learning approach to blend instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting.
Understanding the advantages of this flexible learning model is essential as more districts and states move toward proficiency-based standards. The overall hope is that it helps students achieve the skills and knowledge they need to graduate.
What is Proficiency-Based Education?
Proficiency-based education allows K-12 educators to assess every student in the classroom equally. Traditional educational strategies require students to progress through the curriculum and grade levels at different levels of achievement. Some students may earn an “A” and others a “D,” but both sets of students move onto the next grade level, presumably with a different level of knowledge.
Proficiency-based education is a multifaceted approach that ensures that all students acquire defined knowledge and skills before progressing. The Great Schools Partnership’s Framework for Proficiency-Based Learning identifies these critical elements of this learning model:
- Graduation competencies represent the knowledge and skills that all students should acquire to graduate high school. Ongoing assessments allow teachers to determine students’ progress on achieving these competencies, which are broken down into three to six categories per subject area
- Performance indicators for each competency represent five to eight skills and knowledge goals that, once achieved, allow students to meet the competency
- Learning targets help students develop their skills and knowledge, and teachers use learning objectives for each indicator to assess students’ progress
Additionally, proficiency learning models are the opposite of time-based systems, where time-based systems (180 days, 50 minute classes) make time the constant and learning the variable. In proficiency-based systems, learning is the constant and time is the variable.
Proficiency-based education can be an effective teaching strategy for several reasons. First, it ensures that teachers understand the specific learning targets students must meet, and it offers a standardized approach to teaching to meet each competency.
Second, ongoing assessments allow teachers to identify students who may require additional instruction or a different instructional strategy. Plus, the graduation competencies developed in proficiency-based education represent the skills and knowledge that students need to excel in college and beyond.
Proficiency-Based Education Nationwide
School districts nationwide are adopting a proficiency-based learning model, one that replaces traditional letter grades with competency achievements. In fact, as of May 2019, a full 17 states are actively implementing or have implemented a proficiency-based model, according to the Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL).
Another 13 states are in the development stage, where they’re considering a transition to proficiency-based education. These figures show that proficiency-based education is a growing trend, one being adopted by a growing number of states each year.
While 30 states are in the implementation or development stages of utilizing a proficiency-based approach, the remaining 20 have some work to do. These states are described as having “limited flexibility in state policy,” meaning that making the shift to proficiency-based education will be more challenging.
Success in other states may serve as the encouragement that these states need to help students excel in the classroom in new and modern ways.
More states are adopting proficiency-based education because it can better prepare students for higher education and their careers. However, embracing a new learning model and implementing one in school districts nationwide takes time. No single framework for proficiency-based education exists, so it may vary from state to state.
Proficiency-based approaches to education are worthwhile for both students as well as teachers, and U.S. school districts would do well to embrace this change. It ensures students are taught with competencies in mind and regularly assessed to ensure they receive tailored instruction. In turn, educators in America can graduate not only more students, but also more skilled and qualified students, ready to take on college and life beyond.
