Equity in competency education: realizing the potential, overcoming the obstacles

Equity is both a central goal and fundamental value of competency education. Competency-based approaches are designed to promote equity by preventing students from falling behind or staying behind. In practice, however, poorly implemented competency-based programs could inadvertently increase inequity - in opportunities and in outcomes. This paper examines equity concerns in competency education through the lens of family income, which research has linked consistently with disparities in educational achievement. [The authors] look at research in three areas in which students from lower-income families may experience disadvantages compared to higher-income families that competency education could exacerbate. The areas of potential concern, which align with important elements of competency-based approaches, are: (1) the skills, strategies, attitudes, and behaviors of individual learners that are crucial to successful academic performance in a competency education setting; (2) access to, and use of, digital technologies that commonly contribute to personalization and customization of learning and assessment in competency-based systems; and (3) access to the rigorous learning experiences outside of the traditional school day and year that are frequently a hallmark of the modern competency education movement.

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