Pennsylvania's attempt to implement competency-based education in the public schools is a well-meaning but misguided effort to improve the schools. It will succeed only in diverting vast amounts of time, energy, and intelligence away from more important and more attainable goals. (Author/IRT)

A curriculum development project was conducted to generate additional competency-based modules to be used within the articulation model for Pennsylvania dental assisting programs, established in 1988. Project activities included reviewing, modifying, and providing parallel competency-based structure for the courses at the A.W. Beattie Technical…

Since vocational education leaders will require many more and different skills in the future, this project was conducted to develop and implement a relevant and responsive field-centered, competency-based certification program for vocational administrative directors in Pennsylvania's western region. To this end, the following objectives were…

This special demonstration project was undertaken to field test and disseminate a curriculum entitled Emergency English for Refugees (EER). Designed to meet the immediate English language needs of pre- and non-literate adult refugees and immigrants, the EER is a 26-unit competency-based English-as-a-second-language (ESL) curriculum that deals with…

The Framework of Work Based Foundation Skills Project was undertaken to facilitate development of Pennsylvania's new workforce investment system Team PA CareerLink by identifying and developing common definitions of the foundation skills all workers need to function effectively in any workplace. A framework of 19 work-based foundation skills and…

Issues surrounding teaching competencies in family literacy programs were examined in a study of two well-established Even Start sites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The program, which served 34 ethnically diverse adult learners, offered 25 hours of adult basic education, general educational development (GED), and…

Developed for use in short-range and long-range vocational planning, this competency-based self-instructional module for administrators has two general objectives: develop an original vocational administrative plan for a simulated area vocational technical school and submit the plan for approval (evaluation). The module is designed in the…

A project was designed to help beginning and experienced teachers of vocational agriculture learn and/or become current in the practice of present paravetical competencies that are needed to teach adult students. Specific objectives of the project included providing teachers with the skills necessary to teach students via laboratory demonstrations…

These proceedings contain the texts of 20 reports presented at a conference organized to review and assess the status of the following types of performance/competency-based approaches to the professional development of vocational teachers and administrators: performance-based teacher education (PBTE), competency-based teacher education (CBTE),…