The Case Against Competency Based Education.

Overview & Synopsis

Oversimplification, overspecification, and difficulties in assessment are the criticisms most frequently leveled against competency (performance) based education. These problems are exacerbated by state governments and departments of education that have given very close attention to their mandated competency-based programs. State mandated competency-based programs bear much closer resemblance to their natural parents, the state bureaucracies, than they do to the basic demands of society. Like all bureaucracies, they depend heavily on simplistically defined, interchangeable parts and will sacrifice nearly all other values to maintain them. Although competency-based education (CBE) was intended to guarantee that certified professional educators possess a "minimum" set of skills, in practice, the minimum frequently becomes the maximum achievement expected from students. CBE programs tend to be a dead end for the individuals who pass through them. The proliferation of trivial CBE programs makes it difficult for good ones to exist. (Author)