40 Influential Leaders - Fred Bramante

Fred Bramante
Founder and President of the National Center for Competency Based Learning

Fred Bramante often tells people he graduated 206th out of 212 students in his high school. But grades aren’t the only measure of learning. He went on to be a science teacher, the founder of Daddy’s Junky Music, and served as chairman of the State Board of Education. He has been on a mission for decades to redefine education in NH to a competency-based model. In 2013 he launched NH-based National Center for Competency Based Learning. It is leading the NH Department of Education’s effort to revamp K-12 regulations and ensure that by 2025 every NH  high school student will earn a post-secondary or career-related credential. 

Bramante has delivered more than 1,500 presentations on education reform and competency-based learning nationwide. “I’ve got the most important work of my life going on now,” he says. He was part of the efforts to reconfigure the state’s minimum standards in 1992 and 2005 (regulations that govern how NH runs its public education system) and is currently leading those efforts again through the Center to further push NH’s adoption of competency-based learning.

“Our vision is the world as the classroom,” Bramante says, adding children need to be able to earn credit for the learning they achieve through nontraditional, experiential means. “I am very proud of New Hampshire’s role in starting this movement, but I feel like some other states may have passed us. It’s time to regain our rightful position as the leader of the competency-based movement.”