The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC) is an international group of private and public secondary schools working to create a new type of secondary school transcript, referred to as a " Mastery Transcript." Elements of the Mastery Transcript include

competency-based learning Competency-based learning or competency-based education is a framework for teaching and assessment of learning. It is also described as a type of education based on predetermined "competencies," which focuses on outcomes and real-world performance ...

and the removal of the

Grade Point Average Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters (usually A through F), as a range (for example, 1 to 6), as a percentage, or as a numbe ...

system, including letter grades. The Mastery Transcript Consortium was founded in 2017 by

Scott Looney Hawken School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school in Northeast Ohio. Hawken currently has two main campuses, the Lower and Middle Schools in Lyndhurst, Ohio, Lyndhurst and the Upper School in Chester Township, Geaug ...

, head of

Hawken School Hawken School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school in Northeast Ohio. Hawken currently has two main campuses, the Lower and Middle Schools in Lyndhurst and the Upper School in Chester Township, plus a third, an urb ...

Transcript

Development

The Mastery Transcript Consortium was founded on March 1, 2017 by

, head of

Northeast Ohio The region Northeast Ohio, in the US state of Ohio, in its most expansive usage contains six metropolitan areas ( Cleveland–Elyria, Akron, Canton–Massillon, Youngstown–Warren, Mansfield, and Weirton–Steubenville) along with eight m ...

. The creation of the Mastery Transcript was inspired by Looney's desire to create a new model for education in which learning was connected to real-world issues and students could demonstrate a broader range of abilities to colleges; the idea for the Mastery Transcript came when a parent of a Hawken student approached Looney after a presentation and mentioned that the

Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (CWRU SOM, CaseMed) is the medical school of Case Western Reserve University, a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest biomedical research center in Ohio. History On November 1, ...

, at which he was a faculty member, did not give grades but instead evaluated students' competency in various areas based on an electronic portfolio of their work. The transcript was developed by Looney and Doris Korda, a former

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

engineer and a math teacher at Hawken. The pair incorporated the concept of micro-credentials, creating a credit system in which the credits would reflect student mastery in areas selected by individual schools. They determined that credits would be based on the standards of a school rather than the individual discretion of teachers.

Structure

Elements of the Mastery Transcript include

and the removal of the

system, including letter grades. In contrast to traditional secondary school transcripts, which usually include letter-based grades and lists of courses, the Mastery Transcript focuses on measures of proficiency in various competencies. The Transcript also allows students to present evidence of their learning in the form of a

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

portfolio. The design of the Mastery Transcript is based on three core concepts: flexibility to accommodate a variety of school

curricula In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

, the omission of letter grades, and a format which can be read by college admissions officers in under two minutes. The transcript takes the form of a landing page on which credits earned by students are displayed in a graphic which an article in ''

The Washington Post Magazine ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' compared to the seating plan for a

theatre in the round A theatre in the round, arena theatre or central staging is a space for theatre in which the audience surrounds the stage. Theatre-in-the-round was common in ancient theatre, particularly that of Greece and Rome, but was not widely explored aga ...

. Each transcript also includes summaries and examples of the work a student did to obtain those credits, as well as a statement of the school's standards for granting credits and comments from teachers. The transcript distinguishes between "foundational credits" necessary for graduation and "advanced credits".

Adoption

By secondary schools

In the summer of 2018, Murray High School was the first public school to join the Consortium. In fall 2020, the

Washington State Board of Education The Washington State Board of Education (SBE) is the overseeing body of education in the U.S. State of WashingtonMiss ...

granted a waiver to

Northshore School District Northshore School District is a public school district covering portions of King County and Snohomish County, Washington. The district's service area covers the cities of Bothell, Brier, Woodinville, and Kenmore as well as portions of unincorp ...

, allowing

Innovation Lab High School Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...

to use the Mastery Transcript for graduating students instead of a traditional transcript. , there were MTC partner schools in 21 countries. , consortium membership included 275 independent high schools and 125

public schools Public school may refer to: *State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government *Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England and ...

In higher education

At the start of the 2020 school year, the Mastery Transcript was officially introduced. That year, 250 students from 14 member schools applied to

colleges A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

using the transcript and were admitted to 170 colleges including

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

, and the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

. ''The Washington Post Magazine'' reported that the eligibility staff of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

planned to work with schools sending mastery transcripts to convert them into equivalencies for courses and grades. In

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, and

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, state legislators have directed the state university systems to award scholarships based on alternative transcripts in the same way as they award them based on traditional ones.

References

External links

Mastery Transcript Consortium website

List of member schools
{{Authority control Consortia Educational testing and assessment organizations Educational organizations based in the United States