Nevada Department of Education promotes 'Portrait of a Nevada Learner' and Future of Learning Network as pathway to competency-based instruction

Janine Collins, cofounder of the Center for the Future of Learning, told the Assembly Committee on Education that Nevada’s Portrait of a Nevada Learner and its Nevada Future of Learning Network are intended to reshape what schools value and how they measure student learning.

“The portrait is like the draft description of what we need learners to be,” Collins said, describing the document and a parallel set of practices called personalized competency-based learning (PCBL) that the department and partners are piloting statewide.

The portrait, Collins said, grew from two years of community-based co-design that included student surveys and youth fellowships, educator design teams from nine districts and feedback from business and community partners. She described the portrait’s backward-looking component — a set of “durable skills” such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking — and said the Future of Learning Network is intended to be the research-and-development space for schools to implement those goals.

“PCBL is a set of practices and policies that enable systems to retool learning relationships, experiences, and environments, so that learners are truly at the center,” Collins told the committee.

Members asked how PCBL would affect standardized tests, daily seat time and teacher workload. Collins and later Nevada Department of Education officials said state- and federally required assessments would remain in place while the network explores complementary ways to assess competencies.

“Not an either-or, but a both-and,” Ann Marie Dixon, deputy superintendent for the Student Achievement Division at the Nevada Department of Education, said later during the bill hearing on competency-based education, echoing Collins’s framing that state testing requirements such as those under ESSA remain binding while the state explores additional assessment approaches.

Collins and NDE staff described early implementation activity: a competency-implementation pilot that she said involves dozens of school and district teams and “about 145 educators” across the state working in parallel to develop learning continuums and assessment exemplars. She and NDE presenters emphasized that participation to date has been voluntary and opt-in for districts and schools.

Committee members pressed for details about sustainability, outreach and how PCBL would work in large, urban schools versus small rural campuses. Collins said the network includes professional learning and district-level pathways and that models and exemplars are being shared through the Nevada Future of Learning website. NDE officials said they are aligning the work to existing programs such as distance education and alternative education in order to operationalize flexibility around seat time and calendars while maintaining statutory requirements tied to funding.

Supporters and presenters repeatedly emphasized the network’s co-design approach and the department’s stated goal of creating “enabling conditions” for competency-based practices rather than imposing a single model.

The presentation concluded with committee members thanking presenters and indicating remaining questions would be pursued during the subsequent bill hearing on competency-based education.

The Nevada Future of Learning Network and the Portrait of a Nevada Learner remain early-stage initiatives: presenters said components are being iterated in pilot sites, and that the department plans to use pilot findings to guide program applications, professional learning and regulatory work related to competency-based programs.