Education overhaul is ramping up in Greater Portland and across America with tangible changes taking place in our school systems.

While much of what is called “proficiency-based learning” system is hard to understand for the layman, there are some basics we have grasped so far.

The whole purpose of the new system, which will be implemented by 2020 in every Maine school district, is to individualize learning, meaning students are moving through material at their own pace, advancing only when they have mastered material.

Gone will be the old A-F grading system. It is being replaced with a grading scale similar to colleges where a 1 signifies “needs improvement” in a particular “standard” or concept, 2 means the student is “partially proficient” in that study area, 3 represents “proficient” and 4 indicates the student has “advanced” beyond simple proficiency.

Since this learning regime is still so new, report cards are being expanded to include useful information so parents and children can understand how their child is progressing.

Also because the system is so new, the jury is out on whether it’s making kids smarter and whether teachers, students or parents actually can manage it. Many education officials like the new approach because they say it will push students to become accountable for their own education. They can control their own pace, rather than being stuck in a class that moves too fast or slowly for them.

Despite its relative newness, we can already see a few downsides to the system. Mainly, we’re worried about what happens to the kids who can never become proficient. We worry about the teachers who have to deal with students learning at different paces in one classroom, and we wonder why officials have felt the need to make it so complicated. We aren’t the only ones worried about complexity. Many schools are delaying implementation as long as possible, until the class of 2020. This delay can be seen as a sign that officials also feel it’s too complicated, too hard to follow and too hard to explain to parents. We like simplicity. Common Core and proficiency-based learning seems the opposite of simple, and we’re already hearing that some parents and teachers are confused.

We’re also worried about piling on our teachers. Does this new system ramp up the expectation level another notch? Ever since President George W. Bush introduced No Child Left Behind, teachers and students have faced one new teaching or testing regime after another, all with the premise that every kid can learn everything. When you expect an employee to perform miracles, the employee will eventually whither and leave the profession. Ask a charter-school teacher and he or she will say burnout is higher than in the public school realm because expectations are unrealistically high.

Expecting that every kid will eventually meet proficiency in every content area sounds like a daunting prospect. And when classrooms consist of all skill levels, teachers have a gargantuan task of overseeing everyone’s individual progress. While the new proficiency-based curriculum isn’t inventing a homogenized classroom, which has been the accepted practice for about two decades, it seems to be ramping up the practice.

But this new system isn’t all cons. We like the idea that tutoring outside of classroom time is being formalized. When kids aren’t meeting proficiency targets, they can get extra help, and it doesn’t depend on a teacher’s willingness to extend help on their own time, as in the old days.

We also really like that struggling students get to take a test again and again until they pass. We were worried at first that this sounded like a coddling approach, but in fact it makes sense since learning requires building one block on another. If you don’t master addition or subtraction, you’ll never understand more complicated math problems.

We also like how this system seems to get kids to take ownership more. Students can lose all interest after receiving so many Ds and Fs that they drop out. We hope this more individualized approach will help kids stay at it until they master higher concepts.

And so, while there’s a lot to grasp, we give educators a grade of 2 so far, for “partially proficient.” It sounds good on paper, but it’ll take a while before we know whether this approach is a success or failure.

Meanwhile, we know one thing to be a constant when it comes to education: Parental involvement. Moms and dads who leave all the education to the public school system are derelict in their duty. Kids need constant inspiration to keep on the right track, and that starts and ends at home. We can’t improve education, no matter how many new curricula we try, until parents get involved and teach at home. Expectations on the education system are at an all-time high, but parents need to hold themselves to some higher standards, as well.

– John Balentine, managing editor