Letting go of time-based practices: A closer look at what’s happening in New Hampshire
New Hampshire was the first state to abolish the Carnegie Unit, which made way for the first statewide experiment in competency-based education at the high school level. Under a set of 2005 regulatory changes, New Hampshire districts were required to create competencies and begin measuring high school credit in these terms by the start of the 2008–09 school year.
With a number of years of this bold policy now under its belt, we wanted to understand what this means in practice across the state.
This paper profiles 13 public schools in New Hampshire, each of which demonstrates a distinct approach to competency-based education. We found that since the mandate was handed down, some schools have invested deeply in building competency-based models by creating opportunities for students to move at a flexible, personalized pace; providing supplemental content for students who have fallen behind or want to move ahead; and making assessment more frequent and formative, with a focus on demonstrating mastery in real-world examples and settings. Other schools, however, have remained tethered to time-based practices, such as bell-schedules, end-of-unit assessments, and fixed whole-class pacing. Although teachers and administrators at these schools have articulated school-wide competencies, these competencies may not guide curriculum and instruction across all subjects.
The variation across this small sample sheds light on what New Hampshire’s competency policy actually means in practice. A few particular themes emerged in our interviews across these school systems:
Local control rules the day. New Hampshire’s famous moniker as the “live free or die” state resonated with administrators’ and teachers’ varying impressions of competency-based education throughout the state. In fact, because of the strong tradition of local control, New Hampshire’s districts and charter schools were free to interpret and implement the state’s competency mandate as they saw fit. Therefore, although the state put forth a new vision in its regulations, the 2005 policy and its subsequent revisions leave significant space for district and charter schools to define what competency-based education means for their students. This in turn means that no two systems are implementing competency-based education alike.
Common definitions are hard to come by. In the paper, we compare these 13 schools against CompetencyWorks’ five-part definition of competency-based education. CompetencyWorks has done important work level-setting the field on a common definition, and we wanted to reinforce that by framing where schools appear in their evolution toward fully competency-based models. It is worth noting, however, that New Hampshire’s trailblazing reforms of 2005 pre-dated the CompetencyWorks 2011 definition—in other words, before the national education community even grasped the terms of competency-based education. Therefore, combined with an emphasis on local control, it’s unsurprising that few teachers and leaders agree on a singular definition of competency-based education in New Hampshire. Still, it’s helpful to measure schools’ progress against a common metric and terms to allow people to understand the similarities and differences between what different schools are doing.
Creating new resources, processes, and values is hard and gradual work – The temptation of any reform agenda—especially one as rational and intuitive as competency-based education—is to imagine that vis-a-vis policy change or of their own will, schools can simply flip a switch and suddenly exist in this new, mastery-based paradigm. Many systems, however, still appear to be grappling with the deep cultural shifts—both in their schools and communities—required to let go of time-based practices that have dominated education for over a century. On the other hand, those systems that have successfully moved toward more competency-based approaches are putting in a concerted effort to manage cultural change, or were already grounded in a competency-based, personalized culture even before the mandate was handed down.
For schools, districts, and states nationwide, New Hampshire provides a case study on the variety of new solutions that emerge when regulatory barriers disappear and schools are free to embrace competency-based approaches. The lessons from 13 schools across the state suggest that adopting competency-based approaches is not a quick or easy process, and that it requires new infrastructure, new approaches to teaching and learning, and new tools to deliver content and assess work to allow each student to progress upon mastery.
This paper is the first in a series of papers investigating the evolution of competency-based systems across New Hampshire. The next paper will analyze the role of blended learning in a subset of these schools to better understand which blended learning models appear best suited to supporting competency-based education. Stay tuned.
School and location Students
served
Description
Milan Village
Elementary School*
Milan, N.H.
Grades K–6,
130 students
Milan Village Elementary School began transitioning to a
competency-based
(also called “skills-based”) approach in 2006, after being
categorized as a
school in need of improvement. In addition to constructing
courses around
the skills and competencies that students must master, the
school allows
students to move through online course material at a flexible
pace, based on
performance. Starting in 2nd grade, the school provides each
student with a
laptop and uses academic software and playlists to support
student learning
and make individual learning pathways available to each student.
Making Community
Connections Charter
School (MC2)
Manchester, N.H.
Grades 6–12,
43 students
MC2 is a small charter school
that focuses on providing a highly-personalized
education to each student. The school has defined academic
competencies
as well as “habits of mind” that students must demonstrate in
order to
graduate. Each student moves through the schools’ competencies
according
to an individual learning plan. Students move through these
competencies in
4 phases, which are similar to but distinct from traditional
grade levels. Many
students move faster through some phases than others: some
students
have completed the 4 Phases in less than four years, while other
students
take longer. The curriculum is heavily project-based, and
students create
projects to meet particular competencies in consultation with
their teachers.
Students also spend a portion of their week in internships in
the community,
for which they also receive academic credit toward competencies.
North Country
Charter Academy
Littleton & Lancaster, N.H
Grades 9–12,
49 students
North Country Charter Academy is an alternative high school that
serves
students who are at risk of or have already dropped out of high
school. The
majority of the school’s curriculum is delivered online through
Edmentum,
an online course provider. Students engage with this online
curriculum at
one of North Country Charter Academy’s two sites. Students move
through
Edmentum at a flexible pace with additional face-to-face support
from
teachers who track each student’s progress along the way.
Sanborn Regional
High School
Kingston & Newton, N.H.
Grades 9–12,
728 students
Sanborn Regional High School was one of the earliest district
high
schools to shift toward competency-based education, with
significant
support from competency expert Rose Colby. It uses a
competency-based
transcript, in which students receive feedback based on their
mastery
of each competency. The school has also created professional
learning
communities—groups of teachers across departments that meet
regularly,
shares expertise, and work collaboratively—to align teachers
around a
common goal of getting each student to mastery. Students who
score below
a certain level of mastery have the option to “reassess,” or
retake an exam,
without penalty to get to mastery. The school offers students
differentiated
supports on an ongoing basis with time set aside each day for
catch up or
acceleration based on the students’ progress.
Manchester School of
Technology (MST )
Manchester, N.H.
Grades 9–12,
85 students
MST began as a two-year career and technical education (CTE)
program
before converting to a four-year high school for the 2012–13
school year. As
a two-year high school, MST subscribed to competency-based
practices
prior to the state’s required shift in 2008–09. Teachers work
together to
create school-wide competencies and then design a heavily
project-based
curriculum to fulfill those competencies. Classes offer multiple
learning
pathways so that students who move ahead can explore material
more
deeply. The school also operates a learning lab where students
who need
additional support or time can receive extra help either online
or face-toface.
Next Charter School
Derry, N.H.
9–12,
33 students
Next Charter School opened in the 2013–14 school year with a
strong
emphasis on personalization and project-based learning. Next
adopted the
ELA and math competencies created by the NHDOE and then
underlaid
those competencies with performance indicators—or smaller units
of
learning within each competency—that students would need to
master.
Students work on projects aligned to these competencies and
performance
indicators in groups or individually. Teachers grade students
based on which
competencies they are able to demonstrate through a given
project. Students
have the option of revising projects that do not demonstrate
mastery or
moving on to new projects that address those competencies later
on.
Virtual Learning
Academy Charter School
(VLACS )
Exeter, N.H.
Grades 6–12,
serving 9,170
individual
students
with 17,626
course
enrollments
Founded in 2007, VLACS was New Hampshire’s first statewide,
online
school. All of VLACS’ courses are aligned to the New Hampshire’s
state
competencies and the Common Core State Standards. Students can
move through VLACS courses at a flexible pace. To pass a VLACS
course,
students must demonstrate at least 85 percent proficiency
against each
course competency. VLACS also provides smaller online modules
used for
“competency recovery,” which consists of targeted lessons to
help students
master particular competencies with which they are struggling.
Bedford High School
Bedford, N.H.
Grades
9–12, 1,328
students
Bedford High School’s teaching staff created competencies and
has aligned
the school’s curriculum to those competencies. Students are
graded on the
basis of course-level competencies; in other words, a given test
score will
include discrete grades for a student’s performance on each
competency
being assessed. Instruction at Bedford High School is not yet
offered at a
flexible pace, as students move through courses on a set
schedule as a class
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