"Melrose Public Schools to hold competency-based learning forum" - Melrose Free Press Headline
It's about time they decided to hold forums based on competence - all those incompetent learning forums the last few years were fairly sickening.
This "Competency-Based Learning" program was Cyndy's added Override incentive dangled in front of the Dugans and all the MEF mommies who are certain that their children are geniuses and deserving of Gifted education, but nothing with G&T will ever be real with the ignorant types Melrose hires. This was a way of getting around the Gifted label but still at least pretending to offer something grand (same deal with Universal Learning, etc.) to these pretentious mothers who really know nothing about education and care even less. Cyndy never actually intended to do what it takes to implement a progressive, potentially very advantageous (for all students) educational system. This was all brought forward just before the election as an added incentive, the cynical ba$tards that they are. Now they have to go ahead and continue the pretense because they stupidly brought it up before the school committee pretenders. But not to worry, because they have never yet had a real forum, with real dialogue and informed input, only the pre-scripted, political window-dressing kinds of "presentations," typically beginning with a poorly written (as in zero correct grammar, punctuation, let alone educated prose) powerpoint. Then the "administrative team" will babble about it all in equally incomprehensible "english," followed by a few pointed questions with pre-scripted answers, some from well-meaning parents maybe and others from the sycophants who simply must add their two cents, and maybe a screaming fight if Gerry asks some questions that the administration doesn't want to answer or is incapable of answering, with the administration's dumb defenders who can't resist falling on the swords (hidden in their yoga pants) to proclaim the wonderfulness of the administration.
It may arrive once the superintendent leaves, is forced out, or is finally called out for retaliation against students and parents who file complaints.
Why is the superintendent striving for "competency" and not "excellence"? Have we sunk that low?
Being no fan of CT, you (and probably CT, also) have misunderstood what CBL is. Rather than determining a student's placement in various courses, grades, or paths based solely on age, this system allows students a more fluid and appropriate pathway based on their competency (or lack thereof).
Great answer, Lol'd. One thing, though, CBL, if properly implemented (hate that word after the way it has been so abused here), would not just have kids sitting in front of an electronic device, the way CT et al. have done with Cristiani at MHS (which is not differentiation or education or anything other than a big easy cheap cop-out from teaching the students as the law says they are supposed to be doing). Ravitch rocks, by the way. She really gets the big and little pictures!
CBL could be a very good thing. Not here, not now, not with the lineup of frauds running the district. As said earlier, it was just a cynical thing CT dangled in front of the MEF uber Moms who need to pretend their children are getting a world-class education here.
CBL is a valid thing on its own merits, but there is no one currently in administration with the sincerity or sophistication or sufficient education to get such a system underway. The arrogant frauds are only offering some phony window dressing to bolster their troubled political position.