Competency-Based Education Ignited: A Transformational Systemwide Approach for Leaders (A critical road map for implementing competency-based learning)

The traditional system of education is failing our students. Evidence shows competency-based education (CBE) develops empowered learners who succeed, but effective implementation requires a systemwide, coordinated approach. Competency-Based Education Ignited offers school and district leaders a road map for successfully transitioning to CBE that involves actionable stages and a plan for creating a student-centered learning environment.

This book will help K–12 school and district leaders:
• Understand student and teacher perspectives in a successful competency-based learning system
• Take advantage of CBE implementation knowledge rooted in decades of experience
• Examine essential questions to guide understanding in each chapter
• Gain insight into the fundamental shift from covering material to facilitating true mastery of content and skills
• Discover how a CBE system boosts student engagement and helps students create, deploy, and navigate their own learning

Contents:
Foreword
Introduction: Creating a New Vision for Student-Centered Schools—Competency-Based Education
Chapter 1: The Reality That Educators Face
Chapter 2: A Revolutionary Future for Learning—Embracing CBE
Chapter 3: Student Perspective
Chapter 4: Teacher Perspective
Chapter 5: Principal Perspective
Chapter 6: Superintendent Perspective
Chapter 7: A Vision for a New Future—Student Success and Scaling CBE
Conclusion
Appendix A: List of CBE Implemented Locations
Appendix B: Glossary of Terms
References and Resources
Index

Richard A. DeLorenzo is the original founder of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition (RISC) and an internationally known leader in education and organization restructuring. He is best known for his uniquely comprehensive grassroots approach to reinventing school systems to meet the needs of all learners. Under Richard’s leadership, Alaska’s Chugach School District became the first K–12 district in the United States to move from a time-based to a performance-based system in which students must meet performance targets rather than earn credits to graduate. Richard has decades of experience working with youth at risk and students with disabilities of all ages in a wide variety of settings.
Often described as a visionary, he has the unique ability to involve others in his dreams for advancing the education system. In addition to guiding schools and districts in the United States, Richard has consulted with organizations around the globe. His account of a historically challenged rural district that made remarkable strides in student achievement using the competency-based education (CBE) approach to schooling became one of the first-ever education recipients of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Since 2018, Richard has worked in Moscow to help redesign the Russian education system, where he ultimately transformed seventy-two thousand schools to personal learning models, which positively impacted the future of their country’s economy. Richard is passionate about scaling CBE and committed to helping other countries that value a better education system.
Richard earned a bachelor’s degree in education and special education from Central Washington University. He received a master’s degree in special education and an educational administration degree from the University of Alaska Juneau. He earned his superintendent credentials from the University of Alaska Anchorage.
To learn more about Richard’s work, visit https://cbeignited.org/team or follow him on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/richard-delorenzo-7165684).

Roxanne L. Mourant, MEd, is chief education officer of Educating for Leadership, Inc., in Alaska. She is former education consultant with Re-Inventing Schools Coalition (RISC), where she was part of a team that led system change through leadership, curricular improvement, and professional development initiatives and aligned those efforts with the district’s progress as a competency-based system. Roxy has been an educator since 1987 with a background as a robotics coach, teacher, and school and district administrator in a variety of school settings. Her educational experiences range from working in a predominantly low-income minority school to working in some of the most affluent and high-performing schools, including Chugach School District in Alaska, which won the first Baldrige Award in Education. She’s also taught graduate courses on leadership and curriculum for the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University as an adjunct faculty member.
She has presented throughout the United States on topics ranging from developing a culture of high expectations to implementing support systems for students who are struggling academically and behaviorally. She has also worked with educational leaders to make curricula more relevant to minority students.
Roxy received a bachelor’s degree in education from Alaska Pacific University and a master’s degree in educational technology in teaching from Ashford University in Iowa.