Career guidance on the cutting edge of competency-based assessment

This article describes New Hampshire's efforts in developing and implementi ng a Competency-Based Transcript for secondary education. The Competency-Ba sed Transcript is a method of recording the attainment of skills as well as traditional educational learning represented by grades, test scores, etc. The impact, on students' developing self-esteem, of the opportunity to demo nstrate learned skills is discussed. The role of Career Guidance in compete ncy-based teaching, learning, and assessment cannot be underestimated becau se of the cross-cutting skills that form a foundation for all academic, soc ial, and career learning. Trends in assessment may favour a comprehensive t esting model which captures what students know without opportunity to demon strate what they are able to do with that. knowledge, particularly in the h igher grades, 9 through 12. Assessment models that use portfolios as "check lists" of skills practiced or attained may also only document opportunities to access knowledge and may not be reliable methods of assessment. New Ham pshire's Competency-Based Transcript model and its method of application is described and discussed as an assessment method in which students demonstr ate what they are able to do and demonstrations are evaluated against one p erformance standard, with both internal and external consistency reviews. T his is a professional judgement model, which requires training and reform i n teaching, learning, and assessment methods. This model aligns with and mu tually supports both state curriculum frameworks and state testing.