Competency Based Testing

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Towards the end of the Wizard of Oz movie, while the whole Yellow Brick Road gang was being addressed by the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz, the dog Toto ran off to the side, pulled back on a curtain, and showed that a normal-looking humbug of a person was operating cranks and levers. For a short while, the normal-looking man kept yanking levers and cranking cranks, and said into the microphone (which made the Great and Powerful Wizard speak the same words) "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I AM The Great And Powerful Wiz…" Then he gives up, because he knows his trick has been seen through and there's nothing that can fix it. In other words, he wanted everyone to keep being impressed by the big flashy magic show, and ignore that they might have found out how the trick really works.
This is what again is beginning to happen in education with a term you are share to begin to hear more about, “Competency Based Testing”. From the very same groups and persons that gave you Common Core—their newest spin is to try and convince parents, teachers and communities that they want to reduce
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United for Florida Children founder Laura McCrary recently wrote, “I am going to be blunt here. If parents don’t wake up and take a stand right now, this year, we will only have ourselves to blame. Ask yourself this. How do you see education in four to six years? I can promise you it won’t be the friendly teacher driven classrooms we are seeing today. Changes are being made from the top down right now as you are reading this, and it isn’t pretty. It is called Competency Based Education (also known as Competency Based Learning, Outcome Based Education, Personalized Learning, and Performance Based Education to name a few).” Please read the rest of her column which gives a great deal of background and information on CBTs:

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