More and more students are acquiring knowledge and skills outside school, and yet traditional schools still have a virtual monopoly on certifying whether a student’s knowledge is sufficient. Adults and children are taking online courses, working with remote human or computer-based tutors, and participating in online communities with a focus on learning. But if they fail to enroll in a school or college to complete their diploma or degree requirements, these plugged-in learners often receive little credit for their accomplishments.

The General Educational Development, or GED, credential offers alternative certification for students, but it comes with low status educationally. Hence, the American Council on Education, which administers it, is revamping the GED to connect it to the new Common Core State Standards Initiative.

There are also technical-proficiency certifications from companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, and Novell, as well as from technical societies, but these have limited scope. For example, the Cisco Networking Academies provide free curriculum and assessment resources online for their program that prepares learners to take the first Cisco certification exam. Recently, the Mozilla Foundation, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, launched a competition to develop “Badges for Lifelong Learning,” which would certify student learning outside school. Many states have developed alternative certifications for teachers, but none for students.

As we rethink education in the digital age, we need to reconsider how students are deemed proficient in terms of the skills and knowledge they develop outside the standard classroom environment.

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