When I went to school, I memorized facts for tests, took the tests and the facts I personally didn't care about escaped my memory quite quickly. Sometimes I had to memorize simple processes, like in math and science, but those too escaped my brain as soon as I didn't need them for a test anymore. I know this is a similar experience for most of us.
I don't want to diminish my school experience or critique my teachers too harshly. I gained a lot from school that went beyond practicing the skills of studying and memorization. I remember practicing public speaking, writing, collaboration, research and how to organize and present projects. Those skills were reinforced over time, but in my memory, the tests always counted more. Final exams, the ultimate memorization test, were counted as ten percent of the final grade. Math, science and history were the main culprits.
This spring marks twenty-one years I've been working in and for New Hampshire public education. I'm so thankful to have started teaching just when competency-based assessment was being piloted here. First, because, for me, it makes so much more sense than what I experienced as a student and second, because I was in the thick of it as Franklin was one of the first pilot sites.
I worked in the School to Work program, part of a Workforce Investment Act initiative. The courses were naturally competency based, and I remember helping students think through their tri fold displays that they would bring to the Center of New Hampshire for a statewide Competency-Based Assessment exhibition with other NH schools. I walked around amazed at the great work happening in the other schools; a sense of pride at being one of the first teachers in New Hampshire to get the experience to pilot a new way of doing school.
When NH became the first state to adopt a policy to require high schools to be competency based, I was lucky to be working at Merrimack Valley for some forward thinking administrators and had access to the first state funded professional development in competency based education. Merrimack Valley School District housed CACES, the capital area's professional development center for teachers, which meant more opportunities for MV teachers to participate.
I remember some of these sessions vividly because they were held at Summer Street School, where I had attended first and second grade. Two of the main work spaces were in those two classrooms and I marveled at how much smaller they felt, at how the wood floors sounded the same and how much technology there was in Mrs. Aldrich's old room. I remember the day, Mrs. Aldrich got her first classroom computer back in 1985, one of the first in the district. She lamented, “One day, computers will be the teachers.”
But by 2005, that had not happened and instead, we were changing education in a different way by designing the first set of New Hampshire competencies. This was hard because the consultants and facilitators that were hired to lead the work, had never really done this before. We were all learning together, and there were some philosophical differences that had to be worked out.
As an English teacher, and as someone who participated in the pilots, competency statements were relatively easy to write and assess. But not everyone found it so easy, including consultants. This was due in part because no one had thought through structure and design specifications. And, the way local control is executed here, where the state tells you what to do but not how to do it, districts ended up all over the place.
For New Hampshire, going first was brave, but not fully executed. The rest of the country benefited from us going first, head-in with an unfunded mandate that created a lot of different scenarios from which to learn. I often say, New Hampshire went first, but we didn't go far.
Let me clarify that. Some districts went farther than others, but as a state, implementation can be drastically different. Which is why it is easy for people to poke holes in competency based education and roll back the progress we have made. Many want education to go back to checklists where kids demonstrate simple, low rigor skills. But the reality is, those checklist skills and memorized facts just aren't enough to create literate, active citizens who are college and career ready and civically engaged. And, if we move backward on competencies, we're putting our students and our communities at a disadvantage.
There is a snowball effect happening in New Hampshire right now where all kinds of words are being added as it rolls down the hill toward public education. Critical Race Theory came first, then Social Emotional Learning was added on. Equity is on the list and I’ve seen competency based education included. Words are just piling on without any thought or critical thinking on how those words represent concepts that are actually good for New Hampshire.
Ironically it is a function of an education system that for one hundred years has mostly been about memorization and checklists. And, because we've not fully funded and supported competency based implementation since the policy was written, we've got a whole generation of folks who had a bad experience with it and pine for the good ol' days of multiple guess tests and fill in the blank assessments which values memorization more than anything else. Note here the new civics test is all about memorization and not skill.
The recent update to the minimum standards in New Hampshire has brought competency based education into the forefront in a way it's never been before. As I read more and more critiques and articles about it, it's clear folks don't quite understand what's happened on the ground with competency based education, and a primer is needed.
My aim in my next series of essays is to explain components of competency based assessment and why it's important to fight for in New Hampshire. If we turn our backs on this holistic and humane way of education, we're turning our backs on our future economy, democracy and community.