Giving Compass' Take:

• Getting Smart published a list of advocacy organizations that are working on effective competency-based education programs. 

• How can these organizations collaborate and share best practices in competency-based learning? What role can donors play in supporting collaboration between education advocacy organizations? 

• Read about the five trends seeding competency-based education growth.

We’ve been looking into what schools, districts, networks, and impact organizations are doing to accelerate progress toward an effective CBE system, and in July we will release a full publication highlighting our research and analysis. In the meantime, we have assembled a series of initial lists of positive examples in various areas.

The organizations discussed are interesting and forward-leaning groups moving the needle forward in terms of our collective understanding of what competency education is, and what it could be.

This list is not intended to be comprehensive, but is a sampling of groups identified as exemplars by people we’ve interviewed and/or other sources we’ve encountered in our research. Here are a few from that list:

  • iNACOL is an international non-profit dedicated to catalyzing “the transformation of K-12 education policy and practice to advance powerful, personalized, learner-centered experiences through competency-based, blended and online learning.
  • CompetencyWorks, a project of iNACOL, is an “online resource dedicated to providing information and knowledge about competency education in the K-12 education system.”
  • Credential Engine is a nonprofit focused on improving transparency in the credentialing marketplace and developer of the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), a common markup language designed to improve discoverability of certifications, badges, and other verified achievements.

Check out the list of all the competency-based education programs at Getting Smart.