EdSurge has published a piece called How State Reform in New Hampshire Led to Teacher Autonomy that features the work being done in the Sanborn Regional School District with the support of the New Hampshire Department of Education. The goal is to teach students 21st century skills through improving Work Study Practices. Here’s the lede:
[A]t Memorial Elementary School, one of two elementary schools in New Hampshire’s Sanborn Regional School District, administrators and teachers are given the freedom to experiment with cutting-edge ideas not in spite of district and state guidelines, but because of them. The independence granted to Memorial’s teachers has empowered them to make changes at the school, which serves about 300 K-5 students.
The state of New Hampshire has been gradually shifting toward competency-based education (CBE) for two decades. The changes first impacted high schools, and in the past three years, the model has made its way into K-12 classrooms. New Hampshire’s reform involves a number of efforts focused on serving the whole child and encouraging student agency. Two recent state initiatives are defining a set of non-academic work habits that contribute to student success, and developing a statewide performance-based assessment system.
Read the whole piece here.