"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's about time they decided to hold forums based on competence - all those incompetent learning forums the last few years were fairly sickening.
LOL. Stupid me for thinking our kids have always been given material to be competent learners. A school system that is trying to get students to be competent should be coming just around the corner. Wait for it.......wait for it..............
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).
I personally know what it is. I liked the joke none the less. We have a system that has ZERO differentiation occurring in the elementary level, except for IEP. I would love to see it. Believe me. Upper grades has it by class placement. But this is absolutely not what I would want at all. The words fluidity and appropriate would absolutely not be a word I would use for our students usage of CBE. Now, if everyone is comfortable with sticking your kid in front of the screen to learn and have less and less time with an actual teacher then by all means love away with CBE.
I like this quote: "Parents, here’s the moral of the story: if you want your child “constantly interacting” with whatever corporate testing company your state has contracted with, and if you trust that company to be your child’s teacher, then by all means, CBE is for you."
Anyone who knows anything about keeping up on education knows certain blog sites. This one is a hot one. Here he writes about CBE. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/11/selling-competency-based-education.html?m=1
Or read Diane Ravitch Articles. Quoted here: "The “reformers” of education want to replace “teacher” with “individualized instruction” and/or “tablet”. They believe that quality teachers can be seamlessly replaced by a tablet, some headphones, and some wifi."
I do not want CBE in my cities education. I personally want real differentiation to be put into our classrooms and provided to our teachers. Too much to ask? Maybe. In a perfect world I would like to Empower teachers, not computers and to Stop the financialization and monetization of public education. That is One of my favorite quotes of all time regarding education and appropriate for our talk about competency based education.
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.
