This resource was updated March 10, 2026.
Since 2022, KnowledgeWorks has been writing about trends in state education policy in alignment with the State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning. Explore the years’ trends through the tabs below, with the most recent first. Researchers can use the analyses to examine the shifts over the years.
This information is accurate as of September 2025.
Education policy trends show a focus on high school transformation, personalized academic acceleration, career readiness and sustianable funding.
This year, we heard a lot from states about the importance of preparing students for postsecondary and career readiness. This nationwide concern was front and center during the 2025 legislative session, as trends in the legislative space have been clear that education systems need to provide students with the academic and workforce skills to ensure they’re successful after high school.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, all 50 states and the District of Columbia held legislative sessions in 2025. At KnowledgeWorks, we track legislation across the country to identify introduced and enacted legislation that supports student-centered learning and improves student outcomes through flexibility and innovation. In our fourth year of legislative tracking, we’ve started making updates to our legislative tracking system to reflect the most recent iteration of the State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning. Our updated policy framework reflects conversations and work with state partners and peer organizations, as well as trends and evergreen policies we’ve observed through our tracking system.
This year, we identified 43 enacted bills across 26 states that support student-centered learning. The bills largely focused on how to innovate education, through methods like high school transformation, to improve student outcomes. To accomplish this, we’re seeing states encourage the use of personalized and competency-based strategies. Trending topics this year were:
- High school transformation
- Academic acceleration through personalization
- Career readiness
- Sustainable funding
High school transformation
As states consider how best to prepare students for career and postsecondary readiness, high school is a natural place to focus attention. One strategy to tackle this is through high school transformation. High school transformation typically includes re-imagining the high school model through educational approaches like personalized and competency-based learning.
In California, the state is investing in its high schools to help them transform their environments. A.B. 121 establishes the Secondary School Redesign Pilot Program. The purpose of the program is to, among other things, “provide personalized supports that enable pupil success and equitable outcomes. Innovative uses of technology and experiential learning opportunities are encouraged.” It includes $10 million to the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence to administer the program and partner with any peer organizations or other local education agencies to, among other things, “manage a network of grantees to support peer learning and documentation of practices.” The bill also establishes, and funds, the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant which includes expanding career and dual enrollment efforts.
Washington’s Governor signed S.B. 5189 into law (which we highlighted in our previous legislative session analysis), making it the first state to pass a state-level mastery-based transcript recommendation. The creation of a state-level mastery-based transcript gives districts a valuable tool that they can use to ensure that learners’ high school experiences can be more personalized and allow them to more deeply display their high school experience and the skills they’ve developed.
Academic acceleration through skill building
In preparing learners for life after K-12 education, it’s crucial that they have a firm grasp of key academic concepts. While states are emphasizing the importance of these skills, many are leveraging personalized and competency-based learning strategies to help learners reach their goals and acquire academic content knowledge.
Florida S.B. 2510 establishes a funding formula to provide additional supports for students taking courses to prepare them for postsecondary goals. The supports, according to the bill, are intended to “assist school districts in providing academic acceleration options, career-themed courses, and courses that lead to digital tool certificates and industry certifications for prekindergarten through grade 12.” Applicable programs include dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, as well as state-specific certifications. Access and funding for a broad range of programs help ensure students can personalize their learning experiences. The additional funding can be used to financially support students through these programs, including covering the cost of examination fees, as well as teacher professional learning and providing teacher bonuses to improve teaching practices and award teachers who are helping students achieve successful learning outcomes. $596,771,896 is appropriated for this program in S.B. 2500.
North Dakota passed S.B. 2213, which creates a pilot program that provides screening and personalized interventions to students in grades four through eight. According to the bill, “The pilot program must include individualized mathematics learning tools that use a skill-level screener and skill-level assessments to identify student needs, measure progress across multiple grades, and report on that progress to evaluate and improve student learning and performance outcomes.” Individual learning tools must be aligned with “mathematics content standards, skills progressions, and competencies.” The use of assessments in combination with personalized interventions will help students meet their learning outcomes and help ensure competency in early grade mathematics. The bill also allocates $300 million to support this pilot program. This bill is one example of how states are leveraging personalized approaches to teaching and learning to help students obtain academic outcomes.
Career readiness
In addition to ensuring students meet academic learning targets, states also want to ensure they obtain career and workforce experiences that can help them explore options and prepare for their futures.
Louisiana’s H.B. 533 will support the expansion of apprenticeships and work-based learning opportunities in the state. The bill creates an income tax credit for the employment of each eligible apprentice, intern and youth worker. The legislation notes that the change is in part because “apprenticeships and internships are integral components of work-based learning initiatives in Louisiana’s school accountability system.” The legislation also updates the definition of an apprentice to include competency-based program models.
In Texas, S.B. 1 is a large bill that includes a variety of funding allocations to support personalized and competency-based learning, including $30 million for “implementing intensive educational supports to ensure students perform on grade level and graduate ready for college, career, or the military. The grant programs and interventions may include expanding learning options for Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH).” This large investment demonstrates a commitment from the state to ensure its graduates are college- and career-ready. The bill also includes $1.75 million per biennium for a newly created program, Navigating Excellence Through Targeted Supports Initiative. This is a grant program for schools designated for improvement to “prioritize personalized intervention supports focused on high-quality math and/or reading language arts curriculum and instructional supports, aligned targeted tutoring, and include community and parent engagement efforts.” This aligns with the prioritization of academic outcomes through personalized learning strategies and supports that we’re seeing across states this year!
Sustainable funding
And of course, states are considering how best to ensure that funding is available for these types of student-centered learning programs that can help students achieve academic and postsecondary success.
In Montana, H.B. 573 includes a grant program for phase II of their Transformational Learning work. This grant provides funding to “further develop the efforts of the most innovative transformational learning grantees toward district-wide implementation of transformational and proficiency-based learning” and to “use the knowledge gained by phase II grantees to develop recommendations and guidance for other districts interested in innovating in a similar manner.” While this is the second phase of funding, the Transformational Learning Program began in 2020 following the passage of H.B. 351 in 2019. Continued funding for this initiative will help ensure that students receive access to student-centered programs.
Vermont H. 454 instructs the 2026 legislature to, among other things, “enact student-centered updates to fully fund career and technical education within a foundation formula that does not create competition between sending schools and career and technical education programs for available funds nor exceed current spending levels.” This bill makes changes and proposes additional updates to Vermont’s funding system that lead to more opportunities for learners.
An Emerging Strategy for Career-Connected Learning
KnowledgeWorks partnered with Advance CTE and Education Commission of the States to examine how policy can support more learner-driven systems. In addition to the webinar you see here, we wrote about how state policy in Arizona, Delaware and Montana is enabling learner-centered initiatives and career-connected pathways. Read more »
By Senior Manager of Policy, Advocacy and Research Emily Brixey, PhD, and KnowledgeWorks Policy and Advocacy Research Intern Sydni Burg
This information is accurate as of mid-July 2024.
With rapid advances in artificial intelligence, a looming fiscal cliff and a constantly changing workforce, states must continue to evaluate their education systems and consider how best to prepare students for postsecondary education and the workforce.
2024 marks the third year of KnowledgeWorks’ legislative tracking initiative. This year, we’ve seen states prioritize policies to encourage more personalized approaches to education, expanding student learning pathways to prepare students for their postsecondary goals and aspirations and creating more flexibility through policies that engender a culture of innovation. As the timeline to spend federal education stimulus dollars comes to a close, states have to think creatively and intentionally about how to fund current and future programs, with greater attention to equitable distribution of these dollars.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ 2024 State Legislative Calendar, 46 states and the District of Columbia held a legislative session. So far this year, KnowledgeWorks has tracked at least 219 bills across 39 states and the District of Columbia that support one or more policy conditions from our framework for personalized, competency-based education. Fifty-four of those bills have been enacted across 27 states. While the overall number of bills is lower than in previous years, we’ve seen more states pass legislation that supports personalized and competency-based learning (up from 16 states last year). This shows an increased investment in policy landscapes nationwide that support personalized and competency-based education.
While we cast a wide net with our policy tracker, we acknowledge that we cannot catch every bill related to personalized, competency-based learning. To interpret these numbers, consider them to be the minimum number of bills introduced and enacted for each policy condition. Additionally, bills can and do address multiple policy conditions – for example, if a single bill addresses both student learning pathways and responsive funding systems, it will count in both rows.
Below, we outline the five trending policy conditions from the 2024 legislative session. Each section includes examples of enacted bills related to each trending policy condition with an explanation of how the policy will help the state move towards a system of education that supports personalized and competency-based learning.
The policy conditions used
At KnowledgeWorks, we leverage our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning to ground our policy work across states. It includes 12 policy conditions necessary for the successful implementation of student-centered learning.
- Vision for student success: Policies clearly articulate a vision for education that includes personalized learning to ensure every student graduates with the academic knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies to succeed
- Collaborative leadership: Policies support the engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders across all levels of the education system to create structures for personalized learning
- Comprehensive supports for educators and leaders: Policies provide systemic efforts to build professional capacity for the implementation of high-quality personalized learning
- Supports for historically underserved students: Policies establish equitable practices aligned to culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices to intentionally address gaps in student outcomes
- Equitable conditions for learning: Policies include services provided in schools or by schools that support whole child development
- Student learning pathways: Policies empower all students to access and complete equally rigorous pathways that enable the exploration of career interests
- Quality frameworks for student success: Policies support a learning framework, or set of standards, that represent the full-range of knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies students need to success
- Balanced assessment: Policies develop or implement formative, benchmark, interim and summative assessments at the state and district level that empower educators and deepen student learning
- Measuring success: Policies support a robust performance measurement system, including accountability and reporting tools
- Culture of innovation: Policies empower educators, researchers, communities and families to design, refine, evaluate and advance new learning models that better support student needs.
- Responsive funding systems: Policies support adequate, equitable and flexible funding and resource systems that enable educators to advance personalized learning and address educational inequities
- Continuous school improvement: Policies support the improvement of all schools with transparent, dynamic systems that empower local leaders and their communities to diagnose, analyze and address the needs of all students.
Personalized learning policy trends
Here we highlight trends from the policy areas in our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning that had the most legislative action this year.
Responsive funding systems
Learning is made personal and applicable through pathways that allow students to cultivate their unique interests, strengths and passions both inside and outside of the classroom. In this session, at least 86 bills were introduced that expand student learning pathways toward high school graduation and postsecondary success. Between CTE programs, work-based learning opportunities, apprenticeships and dual-enrollment courses, at least 20 bills enacted across 11 states catalyze a wide range of student learning pathways that could enhance the quality and quantity of high school diplomas earned.
Oklahoma H.B. 3278 modifies graduation requirements to include six pathway units or sets of competencies across disciplines that help students develop transferable life skills and a more personal academic experience. This bill requires school districts’ boards of education to establish pathway units with expanded course options that may include any additional units or sets of competencies approved by the school district board of education, world or non-English language, computer technology, Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, internship or apprenticeship programs, career and technology education courses, concurrently enrolled courses, advanced placement courses, International Baccalaureate courses approved for college admission requirements or other approved courses that align with a student’s Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP). As such, this bill encourages students to explore their personal interests and take ownership of their learning more meaningfully.
Virginia S.B. 199 requires the Board of Education, in collaboration with the Virginia Community College System, career and technical education directors and industry partners, to develop and maintain a current, comprehensive and uniform list of industry-recognized workforce credentials that students may take as substitute for certain units of credit required for graduation, including such credentials that are accepted as substitutes for electives credits and credentials completed outside of regular school hours. This bill creates policy guidance that will enable learners to better tailor their education to their needs and interests. Students will be able to leverage this database as a tool to both learn more about the credentials available to them and make choices that support their graduation requirement needs along with their career goals.
Student learning pathways
In addition to ensuring students meet academic learning targets, states also want to ensure they obtain career and workforce experiences that can help them explore options and prepare for their futures.
Louisiana’s H.B. 533 will support the expansion of apprenticeships and work-based learning opportunities in the state. The bill creates an income tax credit for the employment of each eligible apprentice, intern and youth worker. The legislation notes that the change is in part because “apprenticeships and internships are integral components of work-based learning initiatives in Louisiana’s school accountability system.” The legislation also updates the definition of an apprentice to include competency-based program models.
In Texas, S.B. 1 is a large bill that includes a variety of funding allocations to support personalized and competency-based learning, including $30 million for “implementing intensive educational supports to ensure students perform on grade level and graduate ready for college, career, or the military. The grant programs and interventions may include expanding learning options for Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH).” This large investment demonstrates a commitment from the state to ensure its graduates are college- and career-ready. The bill also includes $1.75 million per biennium for a newly created program, Navigating Excellence Through Targeted Supports Initiative. This is a grant program for schools designated for improvement to “prioritize personalized intervention supports focused on high-quality math and/or reading language arts curriculum and instructional supports, aligned targeted tutoring, and include community and parent engagement efforts.” This aligns with the prioritization of academic outcomes through personalized learning strategies and supports that we’re seeing across states this year!
Culture of innovation
Personalized, competency-based education thrives when a culture of innovation allows education leaders, teachers and students to try new ways of learning. During this legislative session, several states implemented new pilot programs and curriculum and instructional time model flexibilities that challenge the traditional system and expand the one-size-fits-all learning mold. Across nine states, at least 10 bills were enacted out of the 42 introduced this session that promote a culture of innovation.
Minnesota H.F. 5237 is an education omnibus bill that, among other things, creates a pilot program meant to strengthen the pipeline of qualified educators in Minnesota. The program pays stipends to support student teachers in completing the clinical experiences necessary to obtain Minnesota teaching licenses. Policymakers will use survey and interview data from program participants to better determine how to reduce the financial burden of completing valuable clinical experiences and to inform policy recommendations for implementing a statewide paid student-teacher program. This pilot program will allow the state to test the effectiveness of stipend incentives and ideally move closer to creating a student teaching system that produces a higher volume and quality of Minnesota teachers who are amply equipped to guide the student learning experience.
South Carolina H. 3295 permits the State Board of Education to exempt schools from state law, policies and regulations that hinder the implementation of competency-based practices and permits districts to submit a waiver application for similar exemptions. A definition for competency-based education practices that aligns with the Profile of the South Carolina Graduate underscores the state’s ongoing effort to develop an instructional system emphasizing mastery of knowledge and skills. The bill also adds definitions for an “instructional day” and “hours of instruction” that incorporate off-campus educational opportunities and experiential learning, enabling competency-based education activities to count toward instructional time requirements. This bill institutionalizes the practices of competency-based education in South Carolina and permits broader use of exemptions to allow for competency-based approaches to education. The enactment of this bill comes after many years of advocacy by its supporters. In 2022, following several sessions of similar bills falling short of adoption, the legislature included a note in the budget proviso allowing full districts to seek a competency-based education waiver temporarily. The formal adoption of H. 3295 in this session cemented the 2022 temporary allowance to ensure the broad use of personalized and competency-based practices in South Carolina Schools.
Equitable conditions and supports for historically underserved students
The achievement of equitable outcomes requires the intentional removal of barriers that limit student access to educational opportunities. Oftentimes, whole child services like free schoolwide lunches that provide baseline supports for all students can ensure that all students have access to essentials that prepare them to learn. States may target these support services to student populations with the greatest need or prioritize programs and policies based on the greatest needs of their students. During this legislative session, at least 47 bills were introduced that provide supports for historically underserved students, 10 of which passed. At least 47 bills were introduced that provide more equitable conditions for learning, five of which passed.
Utah H.B. 247 directs the state board to coordinate with the Utah System of Higher Education to study funding structures and access barriers related to concurrent enrollment for the Statewide Online Education Program and provide recommendations to the Education Interim Committee no later than the November 2024 meeting. By studying the barriers to student participation, Utah will be able to use the information to more effectively remove barriers and increase education opportunities for students, improving equity. The bill also instructs the state board to provide counseling opportunities for students participating in the Statewide Online Education Program, subject to appropriations. The bill specifically states that students should be counseled on how course options relate to graduation requirements.
New Jersey S.B. 1478/A.B. 2331 are companion bills that create the YouthBuild program in the state to support economically disadvantaged youth “to obtain the education, job skills training, personal counseling, leadership development skills training, job placement assistance and long-term follow-up leading to economic self-sufficiency.” The program will provide services that include an activity split with 50% of participants’ time spent on classroom-based instruction, counseling and leadership and 50% of participants’ time spent on service-learning experiences at construction sites to support vocational learning experiences. The program includes stipends for participants to help cover the costs associated with full-time participation. The bill appropriates funding to the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to administer the program through a competitive grant process. This bill demonstrates a movement towards a partnership between community organizations and the Department of Education and Workforce to prepare students, specifically those who experience greater challenges, for postsecondary life and career success.
Quality framework for student success
Learning frameworks or sets of standards that encompass the full range of knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies necessary for student success are a foundational aspect of competency-based education. Frameworks provide transparent learning expectations and standards for mastery that help students cultivate transferrable skills and develop life-long learning mentalities. In this session, states passed at least seven bills and introduced at least 24 bills that advance quality frameworks for student success.
Indiana H.B. 1243 is an education omnibus bill that, among other things, directs the state board of education to establish Indiana diploma designations that indicate a student is adequately prepared for direct entry into either the workforce or postsecondary education upon graduation. Diploma designations must explore competency-based methods to demonstrate proficiency in a course or skill area required for graduation and include a requirement that the student successfully completes a work-based learning experience aligned with their postsecondary goals. This bill paves the way to a broader, more versatile and comprehensive framework for student success that emphasizes measures of quality, depth and proficiency over instructional hours or credits.
Webinar
Policy experts from KnowledgeWorks and Education Commission of the States highlight notable pieces of legislation and general trends.
This information is accurate as of early July 2023.
By Emily Brixey, senior manager of policy, advocacy and research and Sam Miller, former policy research intern at KnowledgeWorks
In our second year of legislative tracking for personalized, competency-based learning bills, KnowledgeWorks is thrilled to see an increase in the number of relevant bills being enacted across the United States. This suggests an increased interest from legislators in adopting new, innovative and personalized approaches to learning.
As most legislatures have wrapped up for the year, July is a prime time to review what types of policies in the personalized, competency-based learning space have passed and celebrate policies that will move education towards a student-centered approach to better support all learners. The National Conference of State Legislatures’ 2023 State Legislative Session Tracker shows that all 50 states and the District of Columbia held a session this calendar year, with 16 states and the District of Columbia actively in a session at of the time of this article. Here we highlight trends from the policy areas in our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning that had the most legislative action this year.
So far in 2023, we’ve identified 174 bills introduced across 39 states that support one or more policy conditions from our framework for personalized, competency-based learning. Fifty-two of these bills have been enacted across 28 states.
While we cast a wide net with our policy tracker, we acknowledge that we cannot possibly catch every bill related to personalized, competency-based learning. To interpret these numbers, consider them to be the minimum number of bills introduced and enacted for each policy condition. Additionally, bills can and do address multiple policy conditions – for example, if a single bill addresses both student learning pathways and responsive funding systems, it will be counted in both rows. Of the bills introduced, 52 have been enacted and will play a key role in supporting personalized, competency-based learning moving forward.
Below we dive into a more substantive analysis of trends within policy conditions and highlight interesting examples from the five policy conditions that had the greatest legislative activity this session. Each of the bills discussed below were enacted during the 2023 legislative session and will move these states towards more personalized, competency-based education practices.
The policy conditions used
At KnowledgeWorks, we leverage our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning to ground our policy work across states. It includes 12 policy conditions necessary for successful implementation of student-centered learning.
- Vision for student success: policies clearly articulate a vision for education that includes personalized learning to ensure every student graduates with the academic knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies to succeed.
- Collaborative leadership: policies support the engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders across all levels of the education system to create structures for personalized learning.
- Comprehensive supports for educators and leaders: policies provide systemic efforts to build professional capacity for the implementation of high-quality personalized learning.
- Supports for historically underserved students: policies establish equitable practices aligned to culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices to intentionally address gaps in student outcomes.
- Equitable conditions for learning: policies include services provided in schools or by schools that support whole child development.
- Student learning pathways: policies empower all students to access and complete equally rigorous pathways that enable exploration of career interests.
- Quality frameworks for student success: policies support a learning framework, or set of standards, that represent the full-range of knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies students need to success.
- Balanced assessment: policies develop or implement formative, benchmark, interim and summative assessments at the state and district level that empower educators and deepen student learning.
- Measuring success: policies support a robust performance measurement system, including accountability and reporting tools.
- Culture of innovation: policies empower educators, researchers, communities and families to design, refine, evaluate, and advance new learning models that better support student needs.
- Responsive funding systems: policies support adequate, equitable and flexible funding and resource systems that enable educators to advance personalized learning and address educational inequities.
- Continuous school improvement: policies support improvement of all schools with transparent, dynamic systems that empower local leaders and their communities to diagnose, analyze and address the needs of all students.
Personalized learning policy trends
Here we highlight trends from the policy areas in our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning that had the most legislative action this year.
Comprehensive supports for educators and leaders
Educators and school leaders are critical for the implementation of personalized, competency-based learning strategies. Often, educators and school leaders need to build their understanding of personalized, competency-based learning approaches, receive training on these practices and get the resources they need to implement them. During the 2023 session, we saw states providing these types of supports to empower educators and leaders to do this work. We identified 20 bills that were introduced and would create comprehensive supports for educators and leaders, with seven of those bills enacted.
Washington S.B. 5187 appropriates $65,610,000 from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund for learning recovery and acceleration grants. Uses of these funds include “professional learning for educators focused on learning recovery and acceleration,” such as assessing student learning, social-emotional needs, transitioning to standards-based curricula and grading and adopting competency or mastery-based options. Implementing personalized, competency-based education practices into a classroom is best done when teachers have the space, time and financial support to do it well. Monetary supports for continued professional learning in states like Washington enable educators to seek the training they require to most efficiently and effectively serve the needs of students.
Culture of innovation
Personalized, competency-based learning often necessitates empowering learning communities with the flexibilities to design, refine, evaluate and advance new learning approaches to better support student needs and allow them to learn at their own pace. These approaches can require significant changes to traditional school structures that are articulated in policy, so state policy that allows for variation in educational delivery is often critical. This session, we saw bills that gave schools and districts increased flexibility to do things such as obtain waivers for innovative programs more easily and expand the definition of instructional hours. We identified at least six bills enacted out of 25 introduced that support a culture of innovation.
Arkansas S.B. 190 changes the process by which a public school can obtain a waiver and eliminates time limits for waivers. Previously, the State Board of Education could grant or deny, in part or in whole, a waiver petition submitted by a public school. This bill gives waivers for public schools the same criteria as are used for open-enrollment public charter schools. Additionally, public school waivers were previously limited to five years, but now the state board must show cause to revoke a waiver. Easing the process to obtain waivers and eliminating time limits will allow more school districts to take advantage of innovative waiver programs and enable successful programs to continue with greater ease.
New Mexico H.B. 130 revises the state’s definition of instructional hours. The bill adds to the existing definition by expanding what can be counted towards instructional hour requirements. This includes elements such as enrichment programs that focus on problem-solving and cognitive skills development; content that provides technical knowledge, skills and competency-based applied learning; and research- or evidence-based social, emotional or academic interventions. This broader definition of instructional hours allows for a range of activities and programs to take place during the school day so that the needs of students and educators can be more personalized. The annual requirement for instructional hours also increased from the current minimums of 990 hours for elementary school and 1,080 hours for secondary school to 1,140 for all schools. According to the bill’s legislative analysis, although this puts New Mexico’s instructional hours requirement among the highest in the country, most states do not include the items from the expanded definition and professional work in their definitions. Additionally, all schools will receive additional funding to support this increased learning time.
Equitable conditions for student learning
Students have the greatest success when they are provided with the personalized supports and flexibilities they need to succeed. This can include a variety of strategies to ensure students have access to whole child supports and access to safe and healthy environments. A first step to achieving this is to better understand students and student populations through things like studies, working groups and representation in the classroom and in positions of leadership. We saw many states prioritize this during the 2023 legislative session. We identified 47 introduced bills that would create more equitable conditions for student learning, 10 of which were ultimately enacted.
Colorado HB23-1241 establishes a task force to, at a minimum, study academic opportunities or inequities, promising practices in schools and improvements to the state’s accountability and accreditation system. The 26 members will be appointed by the governor, state legislative leaders and the state department of education. Membership will include superintendents, principals, teachers, school district board members and those who represent statewide education organizations and charter schools. The recommendations created by this task force could inform innovative and equitable school accountability policy as well as some statewide programs and teaching practices in Colorado.
Minnesota H.F. 2497 addresses teacher recruitment and retention of teachers of color and American Indian teachers in the state. To promote equitable access to racially and ethnically diverse teachers, the bill sets a goal of increasing the percentage of teachers who are of color or who are American Indian by at least two percentage points per year. This will ensure that the state’s teacher workforce more accurately reflects the diverse population of students in the state by 2040. Importantly, the bill provides funding for these efforts over the next two years including $3,500,000 in grants for mentoring, induction and retention programs for teachers of color or American Indian teachers as well as one million dollars for an “outreach and marketing campaign to elevate the profession and recruit teachers, especially teachers of color and American Indian teachers.” This bill has the potential to greatly increase the diversity of the state’s teacher population over the next two decades.
Responsive funding systems
School funding formulas, grant programs and appropriations are essential for providing high-quality state K-12 systems. These funding systems are crucial to ensuring that schools and districts have the resources necessary to support student-centered learning practices. This session, we saw many bills designed to help students with fewer financial means access potentially cost-prohibitive education opportunities. We identified 68 introduced bills that support responsive funding systems. Of these bills, 27 bills were enacted.
Texas H.B. 8 establishes the Financial Aid for Swift Transfer (FAST) program to allow eligible students to enroll for free in dual credit courses at higher education institutions. High school students who enroll in a dual credit course are eligible for the program if they met the state’s definition of educationally disadvantaged anytime in the past four years. According to the fiscal analysis, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board estimates that the FAST program will require $78,671,763 in the 202425 biennium. Funding for this program is appropriated in H.B. 1. Access to and participation in dual credit courses provide students with the ability to earn college credit, saving them time and money in their postsecondary journey and providing them access to personalized learning opportunities. Removing the financial barriers of dual credit courses will enable broader student participation and support more equitable access to these types of programs.
Montana H.B. 257 increases funding for a program focused on advancing students’ postsecondary success with the purpose of offsetting costs for students’ families. The Advanced Opportunity Act, as articulated in Montana law, provides advanced opportunities designed to “advance each qualifying pupil’s opportunity for postsecondary career and educational success.” This bill increases advanced opportunity funding by 50% for high school and elementary districts and more than doubles it for K-12 districts. Additionally, the bill stipulates that 75% (up from 60%) of a district’s annual advanced opportunity aid must be used to address out-of-pocket costs for qualifying students who participate in an advanced opportunity. Increasing allotments and alleviating financial burdens from families will allow more students to access important career-advancing programs, creating more equitable access to personalized learning opportunities.
Student learning pathways
Student learning pathways advance students’ college and career-readiness by allowing for increased personalization and flexibility in what, where and how they learn. These pathways also empower students to explore their career interests while helping them gain the knowledge and skills they’ll need to be successful after completing their K-12 education. This session, we saw many pieces of legislation that increase opportunities for students to engage with pathway opportunities such as career and technical education and work-based learning programs. We identified at least 34 bills enacted out of 86 introduced that support student learning pathways.
Washington H.B. 1658 allows high school students age 16 and older to earn up to two elective credits through paid work experience beginning in the 2023-2024 school year. Work-based credit proposals must be preapproved by the school counselor or principal and must include elements related to financial education. Washington’s graduation requirements allow for three of the 24 total high school credits to be personalized based on the student’s High School and Beyond Plan, completed by each student as a career planning exercise. This law creates a new avenue for students to customize their learning while gaining work experience.
Florida S.B. 240 strengthens options for students to access career and technical education and work-based learning opportunities. The Florida Department of Education is required to convene a workgroup to identify best practices in career technical education (CTE) pathways transitions and determine how to allow middle school students to continue their CTE programs into high school. This bill also allows students to earn either work-based learning credit or elective credit by participating in career and technical student organizations. In addition, each district school board is required to ensure that every high school student has access to at least one work-based learning opportunity. By increasing exposure to CTE and work-based learning, students are given a head start on their post-graduation career or continuing education plans and are able to further personalize their learning.
This information is accurate as of early July 2022.
The National Conference of State Legislatures tracks legislative sessions and shows that 46 states and the District of Columbia have legislative activity of some sort this year, with 15 states and the District of Columbia still engaged in activity as of June 1. Below, we highlight trends from across the policy areas within our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning.
While we cast a wide net with our policy tracker, we acknowledge that we cannot possibly catch every bill related to personalized, competency-based learning. To interpret these numbers, consider them to be the minimum number of bills introduced in each state and in each policy condition. Of the bills introduced, 34 have been enacted and will play a key role in supporting personalized, competency-based learning moving forward.
Below we dive into a more substantive analysis of trends within policy conditions and highlight interesting examples from the four policy conditions that had the greatest legislative activity this session.
The policy conditions used
At KnowledgeWorks, we leverage our State Policy Framework for Personalized Learning to ground our policy work across states. It includes 12 policy conditions necessary for successful implementation of student-centered learning.
- Vision for student success: policies clearly articulate a vision for education that includes personalized learning to ensure every student graduates with the academic knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies to succeed.
- Collaborative leadership: policies support the engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders across all levels of the education system to create structures for personalized learning.
- Comprehensive supports for educators and leaders: policies provide systemic efforts to build professional capacity for the implementation of high-quality personalized learning.
- Supports for historically underserved students: policies establish equitable practices aligned to culturally responsive and trauma-informed practices to intentionally address gaps in student outcomes.
- Equitable conditions for learning: policies include services provided in schools or by schools that support whole child development.
- Student learning pathways: policies empower all students to access and complete equally rigorous pathways that enable exploration of career interests.
- Quality frameworks for student success: policies support a learning framework, or set of standards, that represent the full-range of knowledge, skills and social-emotional competencies students need to success.
- Balanced assessment: policies develop or implement formative, benchmark, interim and summative assessments at the state and district level that empower educators and deepen student learning.
- Measuring success: policies support a robust performance measurement system, including accountability and reporting tools.
- Culture of innovation: policies empower educators, researchers, communities and families to design, refine, evaluate, and advance new learning models that better support student needs.
- Responsive funding systems: policies support adequate, equitable and flexible funding and resource systems that enable educators to advance personalized learning and address educational inequities.
- Continuous school improvement: policies support improvement of all schools with transparent, dynamic systems that empower local leaders and their communities to diagnose, analyze and address the needs of all students.
In 2022, over 225 bills were introduced across 40 states that support one or more policy condition outlined in our state policy framework.
Number of bills introduced by policy condition
Equitable conditions for learning
In the pandemic recovery phase of education, the mental and physical well-being of students was top of mind for legislators this session. Schools can be central tools for communities to provide whole child resources and provide a safety net for young citizens, which is essential to establishing the conditions necessary to allow all students to thrive in a personalized, competency-based learning setting. We saw resources dedicated to supporting social-emotional learning, mental health, nutrition, water quality, vision screenings and more. This session, we identified at least 11 bills enacted out of the 76 introduced that support equitable conditions for learning.
Connecticut S.B. 1 establishes a grant program to support the hiring and retaining of additional school social workers, school psychologists, school counselors and school nurses. It also expands a grant program to support school-based health centers. Grant priority is given to schools with the largest student-to-school social workers, student-to-school psychologist, student-to-school counselor and student-to-school nurse ratios. Priority is also given to schools that demonstrate high volume of student utilization of mental health services.
Nebraska L.B. 852 requires the school districts to designate one or more behavioral health point of contact for each school building. Each behavioral health point of contact will have knowledge of community behavioral health service providers & other resources available for students and families. The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE), & the Division of Behavioral Health of the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) is instructed to provide each school district with a registry of state & local behavioral health resources available to work with students and families by geographic area.
Vermont S. 287 adjusts the state education funding formula to more equitably fund education. School funding formulas are one of the most challenging, but most powerful, tools to support equitable conditions for learning. Vermont S. 287 addresses equitable funding by updating pupil weights to better support students from low-income backgrounds and English learners by providing additional funds. It also includes a categorical grant for school districts with small numbers of English learner students.
Responsive funding systems
School funding formulas, grant programs and appropriation amounts are critical components of education service delivery. Financial incentives can make or break pilot programs designed to foster the growth of student-centered learning practices. Additionally, unfunded education mandates, even when well intentioned, can strain an already struggling education system. This year, funding formula changes, such as the Vermont example above, as well as general program appropriations were essential components to ensure the success of personalized, competency-based learning approaches. This session, we identified at least 13 bills enacted out of 73 introduced that represent movement towards or establishment of more responsive funding systems.
We saw several bills pass that provided general appropriations to support proficiency-based education programs. This includes bills such as S.B. 250 in West Virginia, which allocates funds to the state department of education to support mastery based education. In another example, H.B. 1600 in Mississippi provides money for programs that support personalized learning pathways, including WorkKeys, advanced placement, and dual enrollment programs.
In other cases, states provided funding for new programs and initiatives that will support personalized, competency-based learning. In Utah, H.B. 386 establishes and funds an innovation program for creating and implementing school systems that use alternative classroom schedules and/or alternative curriculum. In California, S.B. 129 appropriates funds to develop LGBTQ+ cultural competency training. Providing funding for the development and implementation of the types of programs in Utah and California can be critical to their success and create the conditions for learners to thrive in student-centered environments.
Culture of innovation
In a personalized, competency-based learning environment, students move through content at their own pace while utilizing customized supports to ensure that they get what they need, when they need it, to graduate college- and career-ready. Because this type of learning environment requires significant changes to traditional school structures, state policy leaders play a crucial role in creating policy environments that permit this variation in education service delivery. This legislative session we saw bills that established and funded pilot programs, created more inclusive definitions of or waivers for instructional time and provide greater flexibility in curriculum. This session, we identified at least 5 bills enacted out of 44 introduced that support a culture of innovation.
Arizona H.B. 2118 establishes an alternative education program that allows an alternative program or school to deliver the annual required instructional time or instructional hours on any day of the week. This type of flexibility will allow the program to meet the personalized needs of students while still maintaining the instructional time requirements set by the state.
Idaho S. 1238 permits students to be designated as self-directed learners and demonstrate mastery of content knowledge through grades, assessments, or mastery-based learning rubrics. This new policy will expand access to this type of learning for students and includes more flexibility for alternative instructional models.
Student learning pathways
The final policy condition with notable trends is student learning pathways. These pathways help students become college-and career-ready by providing personalization and flexibility to their learning curriculum. We saw the creation of pathways across job sectors, as well as the expansion of pathways that promote early access to both workforce training and postsecondary education. This session, we identified at least 5 bills enacted out of 41 introduced that support student learning pathways.
Tennessee H.B. 2429/S.B. 2498 requires the state board of education to develop an Industry 4.0 diploma as an alternative to the traditional diploma for high school students who are interested in pursuing a career in a high-need, high-skill industry after graduation. Part of the requirements for the students include receiving career coaching services beginning in their junior year.
Washington S.B. 5789 creates the Washington career and college pathways innovation challenge program. The purpose of the program is to increase postsecondary enrollment and completion and eliminate educational opportunity gaps for students of color, English language learners, students with disabilities, and foster and homeless youth. The legislation includes a grant program to local and regional partnerships to support various elements of this work.
