In March 2023, Stacey Ludwig Johnson of Western Governors University wrote that competency-based education offers a sustainable model for preparing teachers. Ludwig Johnson’s op-ed appears below, unchanged. A new section follows it, explaining the competency based learning model and where K-12 policy stands in 2026.
There is much conversation about the future of education – particularly how to prepare K-12 teachers for any real challenges they could face throughout the education ecosystem. What lies ahead for classrooms as they overcome a myriad of post-pandemic obstacles? How will ever-evolving technologies affect how students learn, study, and demonstrate knowledge? Will reskilling be necessary for many educators and school administrators as they prepare young students for the future workforce? Competency-based learning can be the answer to this question and many others.
The Role of Teachers Across Education
Our nation’s teachers have an indispensable role in society. They give students purpose, set them up for success as citizens of our world, and inspire them to do well and succeed in life. Students are the leaders of tomorrow, and teachers are that critical point that prepares a child for the future. And when I think about how we, as education colleges, can best prepare teachers for the future, I believe the most compelling model for training teachers is built around the sustainable framework of competency-based education.
How Competency-Based Education Works
Competency-based education measures educational experience by learning and mastery rather than time in a classroom. It has been the exclusive model of our Western Governors University programs since its founding. Competency-based education delivers workforce readiness by allowing for personalizing each student’s academic journey instead of enforcing one-size-fits-all pedagogical models.
Particularly when coupled with flexible online delivery, the learning journey facilitated by competency-based education increases access to post-secondary credentials by easing constraints such as seat time, scheduling, cost, distance, and learning speed – while emphasizing student outcomes over enrollment metrics.
Preparing Teachers to Deliver Consistent Competency-Based Learning
When it comes to preparing teachers competency-based education has all of the hallmarks for effective training. It has the goodness of personalization: education students are empowered daily to make important decisions about their learning experiences, how they will create and apply knowledge, and how they will demonstrate their learning.
Aspiring teachers can accelerate or pace to balance family or job responsibilities, completing much of their studies around their other responsibilities or life disruptions – rather than having to fit their lives around classroom time. And by mastering materials and knowledge infused with powerful concepts such as emerging technology, healthy learning, professional dispositions and ethics, and social-emotional learning, new teachers can enter their classrooms with the ability to design for unforeseen circumstances and to help students with a diverse range of learning needs.
The Future of Learners
The future of education holds great promise – and a great responsibility for teachers to solve problems, shape futures, and change the lives of their students. With competency-based education, teachers can transfer what they have learned through their studies to create an amazing and engaging classroom experience for young learners.
Simply put, competency-based education works. If we integrate this model into initial teacher training, we can better generate sustainable habits that empower aspiring teachers as the future generation of educators.
In my edCircuit article next month, I will take a deeper dive into competency-based education – particularly the tools and frameworks that teaching colleges and others involved in educator preparation can implement when developing curricula to meet the unique needs of aspiring teachers.
The competency based learning model in 2026: how it works and where policy stands
The competency based learning model that Stacey Ludwig Johnson describes above measures progress by what a student can demonstrate, not by hours spent in a classroom. Ludwig Johnson wrote about teacher preparation at Western Governors University (WGU), where, according to the op-ed, competency-based education has been the exclusive model since the university’s founding, but the idea also appears in K-12 schools, and the policy picture there has changed since Ludwig Johnson’s 2023 op-ed.
How the model is described
WGU’s page on competency-based education says students move forward by demonstrating skills, not by time spent in class, and finish a course when they pass the required assessments, not when a term ends. WGU presents the model as more personalized, relevant and affordable, and describes itself as the only institution offering competency-based degrees at scale. That is the university’s own description, and readers who want independent evidence should look for outside evaluations. Ludwig Johnson’s case, as the op-ed states, is that flexibility helps aspiring teachers fit study around family and work, and that mastery of material including technology, professional ethics and social-emotional learning prepares them for diverse classrooms. Ludwig Johnson states that “competency-based education works.” That is Ludwig Johnson’s conclusion as a university leader, and the op-ed does not cite outcome data, so it is best read as a statement of institutional experience.
What the policy map shows for K-12
Competency-based approaches in K-12 schools depend heavily on state rules. FullScale and KnowledgeWorks maintain a map, Competency-Based Education Policy Across the Nation, whose data are current as of June 2026. It tracks eight categories, and the counts it reports show where states have moved furthest:
- 45 states have a policy allowing students to earn credit by demonstrating competency, not only by completing courses.
- 47 states have waivers that exempt schools from rules so they can try competency-based approaches.
- 23 states have a public state-level or required local “portrait of a graduate” covering academic and durable skills.
- 12 states have pilot programs or networks that spread competency-based education, and 8 provide grants or other funding.
- 11 states define instructional time to include out-of-school or student-centered learning.
- Only 6 states have learning frameworks of competencies aligned to a portrait of a graduate, and only 6 have graduation requirements informed by one.
These figures are a snapshot, and the map answers whether a state has a policy, not how many schools use it or how well it works. The pattern is that most states permit flexibility through credit and waivers, while fewer have built the supporting pieces of frameworks, funding and graduation requirements.
The Aurora Institute released state policy priorities on April 25, 2024. They list six areas: a vision through a profile of a graduate, conditions for equitable learner-centered systems, transformed assessment systems, aligned accountability and data systems, support for educators, and redesigned learning experiences. The page is hosted by FullScale Learning, which presents the Aurora Institute’s recommendations, and they state positions as well as describing the field.
Reading the evidence with care
WGU and the Aurora Institute describe the model as a way to personalize learning and focus on outcomes, and a careful reader will also ask how good the assessments are and what, if anything, is lost when seat time is reduced. The sources opened for this update do not answer those questions, because they describe policy and the claims of advocates and of one university, not controlled studies of student results. A reader who sees a strong claim should ask what outcome was measured, for which students, and compared with what. That habit applies equally to the 2023 op-ed above, which reports institutional experience and does not present data.
Questions for teacher-preparation programs and schools
- How are competencies defined, and who judges whether a candidate has demonstrated them?
- What happens to a candidate who needs more time, and how is that time supported?
- Do assessments measure classroom practice as well as knowledge?
- For a K-12 school, does the state allow credit for demonstrated mastery, and how are grades, transcripts and college admission handled?
Ludwig Johnson wrote that a later article would cover tools and frameworks for educator preparation. For a view of how mastery-based approaches relate to testing, see the edCircuit assessment guide and the professional development guide. The model’s central idea is simple to state, and its value in any program depends on how clearly the competencies are defined and how carefully they are assessed.