In a rather serendipitous moment, the Illinois state legislature recently passed legislation to create an aligned P-20 system that will support competency-based education (CBE). This idea of an aligned system is well-timed for a new project Kinetic Seeds is tackling to conceptualize what it means to create a seamless CBE education system.

CBE is an emerging academic delivery model demonstrating promising student outcomes across the country. It is also a relatively new funding arena for states and foundations with investments being made in a variety of K-12 and higher ed environments. As with traditional education, today’s CBE models are following a similar trajectory of bifurcation between secondary and post-secondary systems with models, tools, resources and policies being developed in both arenas. With CBE in its relative infancy, might there be a way to bring it all together and align K-16 CBE policies and models from the start?

That’s the idea behind our new project which will bring a group of foundations that fund CBE together to deepen the understanding of what philanthropies are doing to advance CBE; explore the need for an aligned K12/higher-ed CBE system; and (hopefully!) identify areas of potential collaboration.

With funding from Lumina Foundation and support from Knowledge Works, we’ll also be developing an alignment-setting tool which is intended to be a “living document” that can be easily refined and revised at regular intervals to ensure investments remain in touch with the evolving needs and requirements of an aligned CBE system.

With so much innovation and policy development taking place across K-12, higher ed and other emerging academic delivery environments, we can’t imagine a better time for a meeting of the minds such as this. More to follow as we uncover and enrich the understanding of what philanthropies are doing to advance CBE and how, through consideration of an aligned system, CBE can guide us to necessary innovation that increases student success for all.