10 school districts across the state are participating in a pilot project with the Illinois Board of Education.
Chicago is participating, along with areas such as Round Lake, Kankakee, and Peoria. State Superintendent Tony Smith says the pilot initiative could have implications for districts across Illinois
“We think that there’s a lot of folks out there that have been doing work like this for a while and we want to build more of a community of practice for it. And we do think that it will have a big impact on the direction the state goes in understanding this.”
Competency-based learning mirrors a national trend in secondary education. The idea is to solidify the core curriculum of a class, and allow students to progress in that area at their own pace for the rest of the semester and earn some form of credit for it.
