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Over the last decade, policymakers have been experimenting with competency-based education, an instructional reform that relies on flexible pacing to enable students to achieve content mastery at their own pace. In this paper, we draw on mixed-methods data from teacher surveys and interviews to examine the use of flexible instructional pacing in five Michigan school districts implementing competency-based education. While implementing flexible pacing was challenging for all five districts, we identified several promising practices that facilitated flexible pacing in their districts. These included the adoption of school-wide interventions and the ability of teachers to share students across classrooms. These practices resulted from explicit prioritization of flexible pacing in some districts, whereas in others, they occurred somewhat by happenstance. In all cases, structural challenges (e.g., the division of time and space and the allocation of students to individual classrooms) inherent in "the grammar of schooling" impeded some or all efforts to implement flexible pacing. It will be essential to tackle these structural challenges to flexible pacing in future efforts to implement competency-based education reforms.

The state of Michigan is increasing its commitment to deeper learning strategies to transform classroom instruction and learning through a competency-based approach to education. Competency-based education (CBE) is a school-based shift in teaching and learning designed to give students individualized support and opportunities to advance based on their own levels of mastery. Section 21j of the 2017-2018 School Aid Act allocated $500,000 in grants to seven pilot districts for the design and implementation of CBE programs, with an additional $500,000 in the 2018-19 school year. The pilot program afforded participating districts flexibility in instructional requirements, allowing them to implement CBE practices. The Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) at Michigan State University partnered with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) to conduct a multi-year study of the implementation of CBE in the 21 pilot districts. This brief presents findings from surveys administered to teachers and students in the 21J pilot districts during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.