Is that D in Macroeconomics going to hurt your chances of getting into business school? Take the course again to raise your grade and keep that D from being counted in your grade point average. Grade forgiveness — letting students erase low grades by retaking the course — is pushing up grade point averages at U.S. colleges and universities, writes Jeffrey Selingo in The Atlantic. According to a forthcoming survey by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admiss

Mastery learning — enabled by technology — is gaining popularity, reports Kyle Spencer in the New York Times Moheeb Kaied, a seventh grader at Brooklyn’s Middle School 442, knows his computational profile. “I can find the area and perimeter of a polygon. I can solve mathematical and real-world problems using a coordinate plane. I still need to get better at dividing multiple-digit numbers, which means I should probably practice that more.” A learning outcomes chart. Photo: Sa

Western Governors University, a national nonprofit, has been providing online, self-paced competency-based education to career-minded students for 20 years now, reports Jon Marcus on Education Next. Some 80,000 undergraduate and graduate students are studying education, business, health professions, and information technology. Each of its degree programs includes a list of topics to be mastered, called “domains,” determined in consultation with employers. Students must “prove

“Last-chance” schools are providing alternatives to troubled students, writes Natalie Gross for the Hechinger Report. Many use self-paced, competency-based learning, restorative justice and social-emotional learning. Rocheli Burgos dropped out of school in 2011 after giving birth to her son. She didn’t have enough credits pass ninth grade. “She was 17, battling severe depression and dealing with a fallout with her family that would soon leave her homeless,” writes Gross. At t