The Center’s Feeder School Networks project involves 25 of Utah’s most urban, diversely populated public schools, working together to implement a competency-measured education system that teaches and assesses students based on their mastery of skills in math, science, and reading. Administrators and teachers from neighborhood education networks—public schools that take students from kindergarten through elementary, middle, and high school—are working together to identify and articulate competencies, assessment tools, and critical intervention strategies needed to improve student achievement.

Feeder School Networks offer additional learning opportunities and support systems for students struggling to master competencies, as well as focused assistance and induction to guide teachers as they employ instructional strategies used in a competency-driven system. Through the development of an electronic student record, Feeder School Networks also provide schools, teachers, and parents with immediate and continuous access to student progress and achievement gaps—critical information needed to ensure that support systems are in place to help students advance to the next level of education.

The state of Utah is working to transition to a competency-driven system in its public schools. The Feeder School Networks project is a results-driven model of competency-measured education that can build on these efforts and enhance student performance, narrow the achievement gap, and build capacity in Utah’s most challenging, “at-risk” schools helping to produce graduates able to compete in an ever-growing global economy.