Schools are facing tight budget times that call for doing more with less and finding ways to innovate, increase efficiency and effectiveness, and accelerate reform. At the top of the ideas for increasing productivity is moving ahead with efforts to personalize learning, leaving behind an instructional system modeled on the American factory of the 20th century, one predicated on sorting out achievers from non-achievers. With the recent advances in educational technology, American public schools increasingly have the means to respond to individual needs and learning styles and to turn the heretofore constants of time, place, pace, and curriculum into variables. This resource defines personalized learning, and lists the top five essential elements of personalized learning. The report discusses gaining competency over occupying a seat in the classroom, and provides examples of competency-based efforts at the state, regional, and local levels.