When Failure Is Not an Option: Designing Competency-Based Pathways for Next Generation Learning

Proposes an online learning-assisted model in which students advance by demonstrating mastery of subjects based on clear, measurable objectives and meaningful assessments. Examines innovation drivers, challenges, and philanthropic opportunities

Cracking the Code: Synchronizing Policy and Practice for Performance-Based Learning

Proposes a policy framework for integrating performance-based learning into the education system, synchronizing policy and practice, and ensuring collaborative state leadership and flexible federal leadership. Lists state policy issues and exemplars

Maximizing Competency Education and Blended Learning: Insights from Experts

In May 2014, CompetencyWorks brought together twenty-three technical assistance providers to examine their catalytic role in implementing next generation learning models, share each other's knowledge and expertise about blended learning and competency education, and discuss next steps to move the field forward with a focus on equity and quality. Our strategy maintains that by building the knowledge and networks of technical assistance providers, these groups can play an even more catalytic role in advancing the field. The objective of the convening was to help educate and level set the understanding of competency education and its design elements, as well as to build knowledge about using blended learning modalities within competency-based environments. This paper attempts to draw together the wide-ranging conversations from the convening to provide background knowledge for educators to understand what it will take to transform from traditional to personalized, competency-based systems that take full advantage of blended learning

It's Not a Matter of Time: Highlights From the 2011 Competency-Based Learning Summit

Outlines discussions about the potential and challenges of competency-based learning in transforming the current time-based system, including issues of accountability, equity, personalization, and aligning policy and practice. Includes case summaries

Who will turnout and who will not? The indicator that could make or break GE2017 poll predictions

Why do polling predictions for the UK’s general election vary so widely? Patrick Sturgis and Will Jennings argue that turnout might prove the be the pollsters’ Achilles heel in this occasion. Getting its weighting right is likely to be both more difficult and more consequential than it was in 2015, because the age gap in party support has increased since the last election

Necessary for Success: Building Mastery of World-Class Skills. A State Policymakers Guide to Competency Education

This paper offers an opportunity for state leadership to reflect upon their efforts and share their insights into re-engineering the policy and practices of our K-12 systems that were built over hundreds of years. In this paper, we introduce the concept of competency education and explain why the traditional time-based system is holding back our children and our nation. We will discuss the important initial steps taken by states in introducing competency education. Then we will draw on interviews with state leadership about their strategies, lessons learned, and the emerging policy infrastructure that is needed for full alignment with competency education. We close with some thoughts about creating a culture of competency within state agencies

Spatial and social mobility in England and Wales: A sub‐national analysis of differences and trends over time

Recent studies of social mobility have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, substantially influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study social mobility in England and Wales, in three post-war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility, as well as how these have changed over time. While upward mobility increased in every region between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, this shift varied across different regions and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore how domestic migration is related to social mobility, finding that those who moved out of their region of origin had higher rates of upward mobility compared to those who stayed, although this difference narrowed over time

Measuring the Returns to Lifelong Learning

This paper investigates the returns to lifelong learning, which is interpreted as the attainment of qualifications following entry into the labour market. For a number of reasons our analysis of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) represents an important addition to the existing evidence base. We allow for financial and non-financial returns to lifelong learning by using as dependent variables both (i) hourly earnings and (ii) CAMSIS score. A fixed effects specification counters the potential biases that arise from unobserved individual heterogeneity and the inclusion of lags allows estimation of how the returns to lifelong learning evolve over a ten year period after the qualification is obtained. We find evidence of earnings and occupation status returns using a broad categorisation of lifelong learning for both men and women, but more variability in returns when disaggregated NVQ-equivalent categories of qualification are considered. Our findings are broadly in line with existing evidence within the UK, which is mostly based on the analysis of cohort studies. 0f particular interest is the finding that returns to women materialise much sooner after the attainment of a qualification, than is the case for their male counterparts.Lifelong learning, earnings, social status