Competency-based education, which goes hand in hand with personalized learning, has recently been introduced as a new concept, but it has many traces to previous frameworks and policy proposals. The root of the idea comes from a central — and by no means new — push to define student preparedness by mastery of material rather than time spent in a classroom.
And this isn’t the first time someone has said the framework is based on an older model, either: Rose Colby, a competency-based learning and assessment specialist and author, called CBE a resurfacing of a policy that was ultimately overshadowed by No Child Left Behind.
