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"Re-Engineering Information Technology: Design Considerations for Competency Education by Liz Glowa, February 2013 Re-Engineering Information Technology: Design Considerations for Competency Education analyzes and examines components and elements of effective competency-based information systems. Based on interviews and research, the ideas in Re-Engineering Information Technology build upon the lessons learned in analyzing information systems developed by competency education innovators, best practices of systemic approaches to information management, and emerging opportunities. The paper is designed for readers to find those issues that are of most interest to them in their role and be used to catalyze strategies, support new competency-based instructional models, and inform decision making for continuous improvement. You can find more resources on the Competency-Based Pathways Wiki."

"We are moving away from the model in which learning is organized around stable, usually hierarchical institutions (schools, colleges, universities) that, for better and worse, have served as the main gateways to education and social mobility. Replacing that model is a new system in which learning is best conceived of as a flow, where learning resources are not scarce but widely available, opportunities for learning are abundant, and learners increasingly have the ability to autonomously dip into and out of continuous learning flows." Hat tip to Jason Finley:  ttps://groups.diigo.com/group/vermont-education/content/user/jdfinley 

In the big picture, it's not the teachers, it's poverty.  Obviously.  And those who say otherwise are being paid big time by those who want to profiteer off the system.

The Long Beach, Calif., school district has adopted a training system in which classroom teachers work collaboratively to improve teaching and learning, a shift from outsourcing professional development. 

This brief information packet from the New England Secondary Schools Consortium (NESSC) does a great job of concisely laying out the history and philosophy underlying a desire to move to a Proficiency-Based Diploma.

A nice opinion piece on teacher rating systems in today's NYT

Report from a symposium on Teacher Retention.  Highlights main causes of teacher retention.  Good short statement that industrial methods on an agrarian schedule don't work in a technological world.

Quick piece on the gap between school and the "real world" of today's 11-13 year olds.