One room school houses had this down.
FYI ping
We’ve also been doing this at home for years. I’m working on my last three now and they are all in high school. Here in our state, government and economics is taught in 12th grade. We’ve already finished government and are almost through with economics. I included all my kids, although only one of them is in 12th grade. Now is a wonderful opportunity given what’s going on and how rapidly it’s all happening, there have been so many teachable moments. They’ve all been able to comprehend and do the work so this method works great for us. The same with science, history, health, literature, grammar and other subjects.
I agree with you. I’ve come across this idea before, in another article a couple of years ago, and I thought it was a good idea then, too. That’s what we do in homeschooling. Each of our children moves ahead at the pace that’s right for him.
I notice that the article doesn’t explain how the school will determine mastery, and where the necessary oversight will come from (teachers under current classroom structure have limited ability to give one-on-one attention).
The lack of clarity in HOW the program is to be structured makes me think that it is only the trappings of the grade structure that will be (temporarily) discarded.
However, I am willing to be pleasantly surprised if the school system implements a true mastery-advancement program.
My grade school was a Montessori school with a similar make up..
Grade levels were set in overlapping groups of three.
1, 2-3-4, 4-5-6, 6-7-8
It worked out well, if you were ahead a bit in 6th grade you went with the older kids..
Ideally Id like to see it more like college in being able to accelerate certain subjects and decelerate others... just to make sure they can RWX (Read Write and Execute (do math) at an 8th grade level when they get through the 8th grade.