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A Case for Multicultural Curriculum - Teach for America

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A Case for Multicultural Curriculum - Teach for America

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This report showcases how to approach teaching anti racist curriculum, specifically through a multicultural program. It is a fantastic approach to looking through the lens of marginalized people, and learning to teach underrepresented perspectives.

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A look at how schools across the country are reexamining their curricula to ensure their content and delivery are centered on equity.

Janelle Silva is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington Bothell and studies equity issues in K-12 classrooms. During a research project working with second graders in Southern California-many of whom were children of Latinx farmworkers-she remembers the standardized test question that baffled one of the students.

"Students need to be able to speak the language of the systems around them in a context that gives them the skills, knowledge, and confidence to deconstruct them as they grow."

Shauna Russell

Director of Academics, Purpose Prep Academy

"Students are learning to use the systems we're building in the classroom to also problem-solve the things that are happening in our community."

Priti Johari

Chief Academic Officer, Academy of the Pacific Rim

Bay Area '02

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Examining Learning Through an Anti-Racist Lens | Teach For America

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A look at how schools across the country are reexamining their curricula to ensure their content and delivery are centered on equity. Janelle Silva is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington Bothell and studies equity issues in K-12 classrooms. During a research project working with second graders in Southern California-many of whom were children of Latinx farmworkers-she remembers the standardized test question that baffled one of the students.

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The 1619 Project: A Case Study for Political Influence in Curriculum

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The 1619 Project: A Case Study for Political Influence in Curriculum

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I wanted to include a piece about the 1619 project and the media frenzy surrounding this controversy. The New York Times (specifically Nikole Hannah-Jones) spearheaded an in depth look at how all American institutions are deeply rooted in racist sentiments and values. A component of this information is to weave these retrospectives into school curriculums to showcase how minorities have been set up to fail in America. This has been met with very harsh criticism from conservative politicians, with their reasoning being that is "wipes away American nationalist attitudes." It is a currently hotly contested debate.

Another note about this: Nikole Hannah-Jones was also up for tenure review at UNC, where she was denied. Her review was not carried out by education professionals, but board members of UNC (some with overt political affiliations).

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In the summer of 1619, two warships manned by English privateers raided a Portuguese vessel the pirates hoped was brimming with gold. Instead, they found and divided up an altogether different cargo: some 350 African slaves, taken in bondage possibly from what is now Angola. What happened to all those poor souls may never be known - they were among the early wave of the more than 12 million Africans sent across the Atlantic to live and die in slavery in the New World.

But we do know that, in August of that year, the English privateers appeared not far from the colony of Jamestown, in modern-day Virginia, and bartered 20 to 30 of these Africans for food from the English settlers there. That transaction 400 years ago marked the first landfall of black people on the shores of what would become the United States.

In recent weeks, it has been the subject of a spate of coverage in mainstream media, including an ambitious series of reported essays published in a special issue of the New York Times magazine this past weekend. The "1619 Project" takes this arrival as a seminal event with which to reframe the history of the United States. It charts how - from prison systems to land laws, the origins of capitalism to the evolution of the American diet - there's little that defines the United States that doesn't somehow have the legacy of slavery at its foundation.

For the project's lead reporter, Nikole Hannah-Jones, it underscores the black condition in America. "We are the constant reminder of ... the lie at our origins that, while Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, his enslaved brother-in-law was there to serve him and make sure that he's comfortable," she said in an interview with PBS. "If you believe that 1776 matters," she added, "if you believe that our Constitution still matters, then you also have to understand that the legacy of slavery still matters and you can't pick and choose what parts of history we think are important and which ones aren't."

The project was deeply researched and fact-checked with the assistance of a panel of historians. Elements of it were conducted in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, a venerable pillar of American learning. It's a serious work of popular history that starts America's clock four centuries ago. ( The Washington Post published its own reckoning with 1619.)

What followed was 250 years of brutal slavery the United States, then a century of de facto apartheid rule. Hannah-Jones, 43, stresses that she is part of only the first generation of black Americans born in a country where it was not legal to discriminate against them.

But this reframing proved all too much for an assorted cast of American conservatives. Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House, blasted the Times for printing "propaganda." President Trump echoed the talking points of right-wing media, decrying the "zero credibility" paper's "Racism Witch Hunt." And conservative pundit Erick Erickson lamented the "racial lenses" that the project deployed to look at a history of black subjugation.

For right-wing nationalists, there's little room for the recognition of fundamental evil, of an original sin, in the founding myth of the nation. A commentator for the far-right Federalist website complained that the project's goal was to "delegitimize America and further divide and demoralize its citizenry."

The project's proponents swatted away such claims, arguing that there's nothing divisive about a more thorough and just accounting of the past - and that these criticisms only justified the urgent need for it now. Trump and his ilk may scoff at efforts to think more deeply about America's racial sins, but he has defended those who marched in favor of monuments to white supremacy.

"Coinciding with the Trump presidency and resurgent white nationalism, the 400th anniversary of slavery in what would become the United States has inspired renewed scrutiny of the curse of color caste on our collective consciousness," wrote academic Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey in The Washington Post last month. "The widening wealth and health gaps between African Americans and whites, hyper-criminalization and mass incarceration of African Americans, the meaning and future of affirmative action, and efforts to save Confederate flags and memorials are but a few contentious issues that will trigger further conflict."

These battles over historical memory are hardly unique to the United States. In countries like Turkey and India, nationalist ruling parties have launched a steady assault on the legacies of their republics' secularist founders. Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin, an epochal dictator with the blood of millions on his hands.

In Europe, far-right politicians routinely gripe about shouldering the stigma of their nations' fascist pasts. A leader of Germany's ultranationalist AfD party in 2017 bemoaned how the country's focus on atoning for the horrors of the Holocaust rendered Germans "a totally defeated people." That same year, France's Marine Le Pen denied that the French should feel guilty in the present for the deportations of French Jews to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps.

"If someone was responsible, it was those who were in power at the time, which is not France," Le Pen said. "France has been abused in the minds of people for years. We taught our children that they had every reason to criticize, to see only the darkest historic aspects. I want them to be proud of being French again."

Those who engage with history more seriously than politicians understand that recognition of a national darkness need not be an impediment to national pride. "This America is a community of belonging and commitment, held together by the strength of our ideas and by the force of our disagreements," wrote Harvard historian Jill Lepore in her latest book, " This America: The Case for the Nation." "A nation founded on universal ideas will never stop fighting over the meaning of its past and the direction of the future.... The nation, as ever, is the fight."

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Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

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Analysis | The 1619 Project and the far-right fear of history

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Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter . In the summer of 1619, two warships manned by English privateers raided a Portuguese vessel the pirates hoped was brimming with gold.

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A Case Study for Anti Racism Curriculum  

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A Case Study for Anti Racism Curriculum  

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This article outlines the process a school district went through to implement an anti racist curriculum in a diversely populated student body, and the resistance the school encountered due to race related tensions.

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As schools in the United States try to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, they're also opening during a racial reckoning across the country.

Last month, a Black sixth-grade teacher in Milton, Massachusetts, was briefly placed on administrative paid leave because of remarks she made about police violence and the killing of George Floyd. After an uproar, the school district reversed the decision and pledged to consider an anti-racism curriculum.

Some schools like Albemarle County in the Charlottesville, Virginia, area already have an anti-racism curriculum in place. Yet some, such as the Miami-Dade School Board, are trying but finding it difficult to implement one.

Last year in Albemarle County, a largely white school district, school board members passed an anti-racism program called Reframing the Narrative. John Hobson, the project leader, says the program encompasses social studies classes in their middle and high schools. Students are encouraged to ask questions and interrogate power.

For instance, he says Reframing the Narrative has been working on a lesson related to Floyd and the importance of saying someone's name, then connecting the concept to formerly enslaved people wanting to change their names after the Reconstruction period.

Saying one's name "affirms their humanity," Hobson says. Humanizing individuals both past and present lets students see history not "as inert or in the past," but something that's impacting the current moment.

Hobson, a white man, says he acknowledges his privilege and his duty to speak up for marginalized voices.

"In many cases, people like me have not been out front and have not been good allies," he says. "So I think it's important in this time to certainly step forward."

So far, the feedback from students across the board has been "very powerful," he says.

Students have voiced their disappointment when discovering Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, he says, especially considering the county is home to where Jefferson's plantation, Monticello, was located.

"Monticello is doing a great job of telling that story now, but I think there's been years and years of kind of telling a narrative that sort of conceals that history," he says. "And so I think similarly, students really get frustrated and angry with their teachers when they feel like something's being hidden from them."

Because of that, students are pushing faculty to do more, he explains. Part of that effort was students' involvement in developing the anti-racism policy.

Discomfort oftentimes is a byproduct of conversations regarding race and racism. Hobson says the county turned to the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves for teacher resources and professional learning before jumpstarting these conversations with students.

Looking inward and identifying potential biases is a critical first step before teaching an anti-racism curriculum, he says. Second, Hobson advises teachers to consider what their students' potential feelings might be.

Lastly, he says to give students an outlet to do something with the information they're learning.

"I think it's important that students are given the space to kind of construct their own knowledge and understanding," he says. "... I think that's really the goal of social studies. It's not for them just to become receptacles of facts, but really to sort of understand their past so that they can act in their present moment."

In South Florida's Miami-Dade County - where 71% of residents are Latinx - the school board voted 8-1 in favor of introducing an anti-racism curriculum like Albemarle County's.

But even with a majority in favor, the school district - one of the country's largest - quickly ran into opposition.

WLRN education reporter Jessica Bakeman says while there is no set plan for what the county's curriculum will look like, the school board has the superintendent reviewing the existing curriculum, developing a curriculum that deals specifically with anti-racism, and creating a student task force to report back to the board quarterly.

"On August 12, the superintendent will bring that report to the school board and they can figure out going forward what exactly that anti-racism curriculum will look like," she says.

Hundreds of residents flooded board members' phones and email inboxes after a misinformation campaign regarding the new anti-racism school directive took hold in the county, she says.

Only one member of the board voted against the plan. Marta Pérez, a Cuban-American, said the plan would be a distraction from COVID-19.

During a virtual committee meeting in June regarding the initial anti-racism curriculum proposal, Pérez commented that in her opinion, "this school district is a shining example throughout the years of inclusion in all matters, including race, ethnicity, disabilities, et cetera. If there has ever been a wrong, we have stepped up and corrected it."

Perez's comment toward past injustices didn't sit well with Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall, a Black woman and fellow school board member.

Bakeman says Bendross-Mindingall was a "victim of the school district's racism in the past." In 1947, the city of Miami evicted Bendross-Mindingall's family along with 34 other Black families by eminent domain "in order to make way for an all-white school," Bakeman says.

"I'm the little girl who was put out of my house at 3 years old in the rain so that they could build a school," Bendross-Mindingall said seemingly in response to Pérez. "How dare you. How dare you. It didn't stop there."

Bakeman says she's also heard from teachers who believe the school district isn't doing enough to educate staff.

Kalyn Lee, a Black English teacher and rookie teacher of the year for the school district in 2020, told Bakeman that Black teachers want to see more initiative from the school board to foster an anti-racism culture. She also said the district needs to listen to Black community members about their lived experiences.

While the school board waits for the superintendent to report back in mid-August, Bakeman says some action has been taken to incorporate conversations about Floyd's death with students in virtual summer school. Some professional development for teachers about race and racism in the classroom also took place this summer.

While the debate over an anti-racism curriculum has sparked controversy, it's also opened up a deeper conversation about the city's race relations. Bakeman points out that in the past and present, white-passing Latinx in Southern Florida enjoy "privilege and political power that Black communities there don't have access to."

"Miami-Dade County is very diverse," she says. "And because of that, many people in Miami believe that the city is somehow above racism or beyond racism."

Marcelle Hutchins produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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A Tale Of Two Districts: How Schools Are Implementing Anti-Racism Curriculums

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As schools in the United States try to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, they're also opening during a racial reckoning across the country. Last month, a Black sixth-grade teacher in Milton, Massachusetts, was briefly placed on administrative paid leave because of remarks she made about police violence and the killing of George Floyd.

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This text outlines the policy decision making that federal and state governments use when determining what types of lessons to implement in schools, and it showcases how divisive politics can be.

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Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education Get This Book

Since 1989, with the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, standards have been at the forefront of the education reform movement in the United States. The mathematics standards, which were revised in 2000, have been joined by standards in many subjects, including the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards published in 1996 and the Standards for Technical Literacy issued by the International Technology Education Association in 2000.

There is no doubt that standards have begun to influence the education system. The question remains, however, what the nature of that influence is and, most importantly, whether standards truly improve student learning. To answer those questions, one must begin to examine the ways in which components of the system have been influenced by the standards.

Investigating the Influence of Standards provides a framework to guide the design, conduct, and interpretation of research regarding the influences of nationally promulgated standards in mathematics, science, and technology education on student learning. Researchers and consumers of research such as teachers, teacher educators, and administrators will find the framework useful as they work toward developing an understanding of the influence of standards.

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Read "Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education" at NAP.edu

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Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education Get This Book Since 1989, with the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Mathematics by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, standards have been at the forefront of the education reform movement in the United States.

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Curriculum Reform in the Nation's Largest School Districts

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Curriculum Reform in the Nation's Largest School Districts

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This report outlines how the use of one curriculum over another affects many factors including performance of students, teachers time spent outside of working hours to find their own curriculum and more.

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Download the PDF to view the table in Appendix A: District instructional materials adoption information.

Curricula and instructional materials are central to academic success. A 2017 literature review of relevant research provided strong evidence that choosing these materials wisely can be a cost-effective lever for states and districts seeking to improve academic achievement. One study of textbook adoption in five states found that use of the most effective textbook-based on achievement results-in fourth- and fifth-grade math correlated with increased student achievement of 0.1 standard deviations. This is as large as the gain from having an experienced rather than a novice teacher. And researchers who analyzed the impacts on student achievement of the most commonly used math textbooks in California found that use of a certain textbook was associated with a similar boost in student performance. Similar research is currently underway for California's English language arts (ELA) and science instructional materials.

This report first presents existing research on curriculum and instructional materials. It then examines the curricula and instructional materials used by the 30 largest districts in the United States. This analysis employs two publicly available rating systems-EdReports and the Louisiana Department of Education's annotated reviews-to arrive at a snapshot of the current status of the adoption of curriculum reform and instructional materials in the districts.

Analysis from the Center for American Progress finds that 10 of the 25 school districts that responded to the authors' inquiries and are using rated curricula are not using any instructional materials rated highly by either rating system. But a few districts stand out as having adopted highly rated instructional materials: Shelby County Schools in Tennessee, Duval County Public Schools in Florida, Wake County Public School System in North Carolina, and Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky, have adopted or are recommending instructional materials that are highly rated by EdReports' and Louisiana's rating tools nearly across the board. The next section of this report highlights the adoption and implementation processes of some exemplar districts.

This analysis also uncovered the difficulty of determining which instructional materials districts are adopting or recommending. Only 18 of the 30 districts provided such information on their websites. Eighteen districts provided information on their websites on the process they undertake when adopting instructional materials. CAP's findings demonstrate that there is more to be done to remove barriers to adoption and implementation of high-quality instructional materials. The final section of this report provides policy recommendations for districts implementing curriculum changes.

For example, districts should make information on curricula and instructional materials publicly available for parents and other stakeholders to access, similar to the way student test scores and other school information are currently available. Districts should also take steps to improve their processes to ensure that their focus is on adopting high-quality materials that are aligned to college-ready standards, such as the Common Core State Standards or other similarly rigorous state standards, and that advance student learning. Finally, adoption is only one of many steps necessary for implementing high-quality instructional materials. In addition to adoption, districts need to provide teachers with content-embedded professional development that gives them the opportunity to delve deeply into the materials and deliver effective instruction based on their curriculum.

What's more, adopting high-quality curricula has the potential to lessen the need for teachers to search for or develop their own supplementary materials. According to a K-12 Market Advisors report, teachers in the United States spend an average of 12 hours a week searching for or creating their own materials. In theory, having a high-quality curriculum on which to rely allows teachers to devote their time to the many other important aspects of teaching, such as deepening their content and pedagogical knowledge; developing relationships with students and parents; and analyzing student data in order to adjust instruction. In practice, there are many reasons why teachers with a high-quality curriculum may still choose to supplement it with or use their own materials. Researchers are currently investigating the factors that influence why teachers may make this choice. This is one reason why curriculum implementation is a much more important and difficult step than the adoption of instructional materials.

One of the promises of broad state adoption of higher, college-ready state standards was that it would be easier for districts to find curricula, textbooks, and other instructional materials that were truly aligned to the standards. Previously, the political predilections of large states such as Texas drove much of what was included in textbooks due to the state's disproportionate market share.

After most states moved to adopt higher standards such as the Common Core State Standards or other similarly rigorous state standards, researchers found that some publishers inaccurately advertised their materials as being aligned. Instead, the researchers found that most textbooks had extraneous material not related to the standards, failed to cover as much as one-fifth of the standards, and did not provide students with opportunities to reach the higher levels of cognitive demand the standards required. The reviews on EdReports.org, a website that aims to function as a "'Consumer Reports' for school materials," show that while there are options available that meet the expectations for standards alignment, many options still do not-including several popular titles from large publishers.

The information available to districts about the quality and importance of instructional materials has expanded significantly in recent years. Given this, CAP sought to answer the question of what materials districts are currently using and whether those materials are highly rated on publicly available rating systems. This is an important first step in determining what barriers still exist to adopting and implementing high-quality curricula and how they can be overcome.

Analysis design

CAP collected information about which instructional materials these 30 largest districts used-first by looking at websites and then following up by email to confirm or request information that was unavailable. CAP then looked at these materials' ratings on two instructional materials rating systems: EdReports and Louisiana's annotated reviews of curricular resources. While there are a few tools available from other organizations that perform similar functions-such as the Evidence for ESSA ratings produced by researchers at Johns Hopkins University-these two rating systems provide the only publicly available ratings of a wide breadth of curricular materials.

EdReports uses review tools that expert educators develop and requires reviewers to complete a competitive application process and training. EdReports reviews instructional materials in a sequential process-first determining alignment with college-ready standards and then, if criteria for alignment are met, evaluating materials on usability. Instructional materials that do not meet expectations for the former are not reviewed for the latter. One of the ways EdReports displays the results of its reviews online is through a simple graphic of a stoplight to represent alignment ratings, with highly rated instructional materials displayed in green to indicate that they meet expectations; less highly rated shown in yellow to indicate that they partially meets expectations; and those rated least favorably displayed in red, indicating that they do not meet expectations.

Under Louisiana's rating system, materials rated as Tier 1 met all nonnegotiable criteria and received the highest possible score on all indicators of superior quality; materials rated as Tier 2 met all nonnegotiable criteria and some indicators of superior quality; and materials rated as Tier 3 did not meet one or more nonnegotiable criteria.

Both Louisiana's tier system and EdReports' stoplight graphic group instructional materials into three categories. However, while the criteria each system uses to rate instructional materials are similar, EdReports gives its alignment rating based on a point scale, while Louisiana has a set of so-called nonnegotiable criteria that, if not met, automatically bump instructional materials to Tier 3. For this reason, while the two rating systems are in close alignment with one another, more instructional materials are rated Tier 3 on Louisiana's ratings than are rated as "does not meet expectations" by EdReports.

Limitations and obstacles

In seeking information about district curriculum adoption, CAP encountered several obstacles. First, many districts do not make the curricula or instructional materials they use available on their website; if that information is publicly available, it is often very difficult to find. CAP contacted by phone or email those districts that did not post the information online, in order to confirm their adopted curricula. Even with repeated attempts, the authors were unable to reach some districts to confirm the information; these districts are included in Table 1 as "not available." Relatedly, even if CAP did obtain information on instructional materials, it often did not know the publication year, specific edition used, or-for OER products-the date the version used was last updated. In these cases, CAP used the ratings of the most recently reviewed editions on EdReports and Louisiana's websites. Sometimes, however, different versions or editions had different ratings.

Second, even if CAP determined which instructional materials a district had adopted, it could not necessarily confirm that teachers are actively using them. Teachers report that they often use district-adopted curricula as one resource among many. Therefore, the district-adopted curriculum can differ significantly from the taught curriculum. This analysis does not provide any insight into the latter.

Third, "high-quality" may be defined differently, depending on local context. There are only a few publicly available ratings of instructional materials, and they have not been without detractors. Louisiana's system is included here, because Louisiana is one of the only states to have undertaken this work at such an extensive level-not because CAP believes that what is best in Louisiana is best for every state. A state such as California, for example, where a much larger share of students are English language learners, has its own standards and requirements for English learners. These would not be reflected in Louisiana's ratings. The authors are not curriculum experts and do not want to wade into debates about the merits of one rating system versus another, but this analysis does use the tools available to get the best possible snapshot of current adoption practices.

Lastly, the current measures of instructional material quality used in this analysis focus more on alignment with existing college-ready standards such as Common Core than on results. There is not yet research on how adoption of materials that are truly aligned to higher standards affects student achievement, because these materials have only recently become available. However, if instructional materials are highly rated on more than one rating system, they are likely aligned to relevant college-ready standards, currently the best proxy for quality.

Results

Table 1 displays instructional materials transparency and ratings for the 30 largest districts in the country.

The following are some key findings:

Only 18 of the nation's 30 largest districts post information about their adopted or recommended instructional materials online.

Twelve of the nation's largest districts do not provide any information about their curriculum adoption process online.

Ten of the 25 districts whose curricula are known and rated are not using any curricula that are rated highly.

Twenty-three of the 25 districts whose curricula are known and rated are using or recommending at least one curriculum with a low rating. Wake County Public School System and Duval County Public Schools are the two districts that are not.

Approximately one-third-30 percent to 36 percent, depending on the grade and subject-of the materials that districts reported adopting or recommending were highly rated by EdReports, meaning that they met expectations for alignment. There are 37 instances of districts adopting or recommending materials that met expectations for alignment; 51 instances of districts' materials partially meeting expectations for alignment; and 21 instances of districts' materials not meeting expectations for alignment.

Only 9 percent to 21 percent-depending on grade and subject-of the materials that districts reported adopting or recommending were rated highly-or Tier 1-by Louisiana's annotated reviews. There were 15 instances of districts adopting or recommending Tier 1 materials; 30 instances of districts adopting or recommending Tier 2 materials; and 66 instances of districts adopting or recommending Tier 3 materials.

Shelby County Schools in Tennessee, Duval County Public Schools in Florida, Wake County Public School System in North Carolina, and Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky, stand out as districts that have adopted or are recommending instructional materials that are highly rated nearly across the board.

CAP does not have information about the instructional materials used in several districts. A few districts did not make this information available or respond to requests for instructional material information. Other districts, including Montgomery County Public Schools and Baltimore County Public Schools in Maryland and Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Texas, use a district-created curriculum that is not rated by EdReports or Louisiana's review system-although some of these districts have had their curricula rated by external reviewers. Other districts use instructional materials that have not been rated by either rating system. Table 1 marks curricula that have not been reviewed by EdReports or Louisiana as "not rated."

A summary of the results across districts can be found in Figure 1.

As these results show, most large school districts still have a long way to go in terms of adopting aligned instructional materials. Nearly all of the districts with information available are using at least some instructional materials that are not aligned to the standards that set expectations for what students are expected to know and be able to do. Forty percent of all districts with information available are not using any instructional materials that are highly aligned to these same standards.

Despite the challenges highlighted in this analysis, there are many districts that have found ways to adopt high-quality curricula and instructional materials. The following sections describe districts that have worked to do so, including by establishing a transparent adoption process and working with teachers and other stakeholders to support both adoption and implementation. The authors contacted district personnel and technical assistance providers that had worked with these districts to learn about the adoption and implementation processes of the districts featured in this section. In some cases, including the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, there were already written case studies that the authors used to gather information about districts doing good work.

Newport-Mesa Unified School District, California

In 2016, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in Costa Mesa, California, created an educator-led steering committee appointed by the district, to ensure that the district adopted a high-quality math curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade (K-5) that had buy-in from the district's teachers. In 2016, the district convened a teacher committee to shorten the list of potential curricula to two options that were piloted by more than 100 teachers in the district.

Using the EdReports rating system, the teachers worked in teams for five to 10 hours a week to analyze and rank curricula. The steering committee prioritized two curricula that were aligned or closely aligned to the California Common Core State Standards and partnered with the Orange County Department of Education to provide a multiday professional development program for 123 teachers who piloted both curricula for seven weeks each. The program also provided the teachers opportunities to assess each program according to alignment, usability, assessment, and technology. Allowing teachers to test curricula in the classroom after undergoing content-embedded professional development provided the district with robust feedback on what worked and what did not work. After eight months of research and piloting, the teachers convened to review evidence, recommend which curriculum to adopt, and came to a consensus with the district. The district decided to adopt a new K-5 math curriculum that had teacher support and made a commitment to student achievement.

Wake County Public School System, North Carolina

In the Wake County Public School System, which includes the Raleigh area, state funding for textbooks was cut by almost half after the Great Recession in 2009. This made it difficult for the district to implement an adoption process, because it could not afford to buy textbooks for its schools. Other districts faced with these budget difficulties may have stuck with outdated curricula and textbooks, but this district made the best of the situation by adopting two free OER curricula: EL Education, an ELA curriculum published by Open Up Resources and that EdReports rates highly, and the Mathematics Vision Project, a high school math curriculum that is also relatively highly rated on EdReports.

The process started during the 2015-16 school year with a quality review of existing resources to analyze what teachers had access to and where they encountered resource gaps. With the help of a technical-assistance provider, district leadership visited 25 schools, met with teachers, spoke with students and school leaders, and analyzed student work samples. The district discovered that due to budget difficulties after the recession, students did not have access to a rigorous curriculum, and teachers did not have sufficient resources to implement the new state standards. This had led many teachers to spend significant time creating their own materials.

Ultimately, Wake County Public School System adopted only OER curricula-EL Education and the Mathematics Vision Project. This allowed the district to reinvest the dollars previously spent on textbooks into professional development. It also gave parents, students, and community partners open access to curricular materials; for classrooms that lacked sufficient digital access, the resources were provided in print.

The district also provided five to six days of professional development to any teacher implementing or supporting the new curriculum. District leadership built online communities where teachers could share ideas to continue professional development, as well as designed school and district instructional leadership structures so that administrators could gain a deep understanding of the curriculum content.

Before the 2017 adoption of the OER curricula, some schools in the Wake County Public School System were using textbooks that rated significantly lower than the OERs on EdReports and in Louisiana's tiered system. The hope is that the new curriculum is higher-quality and that teachers feel supported in transitioning to the new instructional materials.

Duval County Public Schools and Pasco County Schools, Florida

Duval County Public Schools is now one of five school districts in Florida-the others are Pasco County Schools, Brevard County Schools, School Board of Highlands County, and Broward County Public Schools-working to create professional learning communities (PLCs) built around four-week cycles of content-embedded professional development. This common planning time helps teachers identify opportunities for success and possible challenges in the core text and to dig deeply into the content. Teachers then try this training in practice, while coaches observe to see whether the lesson was successful. Coaches and teachers then use observation data and teacher reflections to determine what went well and what should happen differently next time.

This repeating cycle of team-based, content-embedded professional development has assisted other districts, such as Pasco County, in procuring and implementing high-quality materials. Through this work, Pasco County determined that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's GO Math! curriculum was not sufficiently standards-aligned and instead rolled out Eureka Math in its six lowest-performing schools. According to Vanessa Hilton, assistant superintendent for student achievement at Pasco County Schools, more than 50 percent of the teacher workforce was alternatively certified, which meant that she believed teachers would need additional support in implementing the new curriculum. Each teacher had two days of professional development in the summer to familiarize them with the materials and the fluency standards. In addition, Pasco County created a module study with two teachers from every school who worked within the PLC to understand the content and train other teachers. As an additional source of support, district leadership also explained the math modules through weekly podcasts.

After implementation, the district surveyed teachers and principals to see if they had experienced any barriers. Pasco also gained community support by making parent resources available for the new math curriculum and providing parent training nights to explain the implementation process. In the 2017-18 school year, Pasco expanded the implementation of Eureka Math districtwide.

This analysis is a preliminary dip into which curricula and instructional materials districts are currently using. While the analysis illustrates the current status of these choices, it does little to explain why districts are making these choices. The following policy recommendations are aimed at education stakeholders-such as district leaders-who want to encourage greater adoption and implementation of high-quality instructional materials.

Create systems and policies that facilitate and incentivize good choices

Rather than purchasing materials from the company with the most intriguing sales pitch, districts need to create systems that align their decision-making with their needs. Such a process should be transparent; include opportunities for expert input, including teachers; and heavily weight measures of quality, such as publicly available ratings or a district's own rating created using one of many existing rubrics for determining the quality of instructional materials. Many of the districts featured as exemplars in this report in the above section worked with a technical-assistance provider to help them develop such a process. While the adoption process may look different in each district, every district should have a transparent, explicit process for selection and adoption of instructional materials that incorporates these elements.

State departments of education can also be helpful in this process by providing publicly available rating systems or narrowing the list of choices for districts based on quality. A winnowed list of options or a state-developed rating system can be particularly helpful for smaller districts, which might not have the capacity to do in-depth reviews of the quality of instructional materials on their own. State departments of education can also create incentives for good decision-making by providing expedited procurement processes, free professional development, and other supports if districts select high-quality instructional materials. As discussed above, Louisiana is a leader in this work, but other states are in the process of developing similar resources.

Problem-solve barriers to adoption

There are several reasons why high-quality instructional materials have not been adopted as frequently as might be expected. First, districts only purchase new curricula every few years, so some may still be using instructional materials adopted under an old process. In textbook adoption states-where the state determines the list of textbooks that districts will be allowed to purchase-there is often a preset adoption cycle. For example, states choose new science textbooks in 2018, new ELA books in 2019, and new math books in 2020. This cycle is often accompanied by corresponding state funds, making it difficult for districts to purchase instructional materials off cycle. Regardless of state funds, switching curricula on an earlier timeline can be unaffordable, as curriculum purchases are costly.

Second, though there are ratings of curricula available for districts to use, it is also important for districts to assess whether a particular textbook or set of materials will work for them. While there are many rubrics to assist with this task, it can be an expensive and time-consuming process even for larger districts and likely prohibitive for smaller ones. There are likely other such barriers as well.

A curriculum audit can be a useful tool for districts to determine if the curriculum is aligned to state standards and if teachers are implementing the adopted curriculum in the classroom. A curriculum audit includes examining documents, conducting interviews, and placing site visits to schools to determine the alignment and quality of teaching, curriculum and learning. This work is often done in partnership with technical-assistance providers, who provide the additional capacity needed to collect and analyze information about the adopted and taught curriculum.

Other districts have looked to tackle some of these quality and cost concerns by adopting high-quality OERs. OERs allow educators to freely download and share instructional materials. According to a study by New America and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), 12 states and Washington, D.C., have developed OERs, and 14 states have used OERs to connect curricula with professional development. EdReports and Louisiana's annotated curriculum reviews reveal that many of the top-rated instructional materials-including EL Education, Eureka Math, and Illustrative Mathematics-are OERs. In addition to providing high-quality, standards-aligned curricula, OER adoption could potentially reduce district expenditures on purchased instructional materials. As stated above, though, printing costs can still be significant. OER adoption would allow districts to reallocate any remaining savings for other needs, such as professional development related to materials implementation.

Do not stop at adoption

Adoption is just one small part of taking advantage of the promise of high-quality instructional materials. Teachers and other key stakeholders should be engaged from the very beginning of this process, starting with selection and vetting and continuing through the roll-out plan for the new curriculum.

Curricula aligned to higher standards are more demanding for both students and teachers, so teachers need training on how to use the new materials. This includes how to adapt them to their classroom's needs without reducing their rigor or watering down the content, as well as incorporating time to collaborate in content-based professional learning that helps teachers understand the materials deeply and feel comfortable delivering lessons based on these them. The training should also help teachers understand the content itself and the reasoning behind how the materials align to college- and career-ready standards. This type of professional development should be a multiyear effort in order to increase the likelihood that teachers will see curriculum changes as a useful tool and an improvement on what was being used previously-and hopefully, help them be excited about using the materials in their classroom.

In addition, since schools and districts more often hold teachers accountable for their interim or summative assessment results than for their adherence to the assigned curriculum, districts must ensure that their assessments are aligned to the curriculum and standards to which teachers are expected to teach.

Increase transparency

Curriculum is central to the education children receive, determining what they are taught and when. What's more, high-quality curricula can potentially increase student achievement, which means it is important for parents to have access to information about the adopted curriculum at their child's school. Information about the process by which districts select curricula and the adopted curriculum by grade level and subject should be publicly available on district websites, similar to student test scores and other school statistics.

Evaluate effectiveness, not just alignment

Thus far, the existing comprehensive rating systems judge instructional materials on their alignment to high standards rather than their effectiveness. This proxy is useful, particularly since aligned materials were very rare until the past several years. But it is now time for researchers to test these materials more rigorously and determine whether new, aligned materials are in fact driving student learning and achievement gains.

While high-quality instructional materials can be an important policy tool for improving academic achievement, many districts in the country have yet to adopt materials that meet the promise of higher, college-ready standards. Rating systems, including EdReports and the Louisiana Department of Education's annotated reviews, are an important resource to help districts evaluate quality. The prevalence of low-quality materials suggests that many districts face financial, process, or capacity barriers to adopting high-quality curricula and instructional materials.

Increasing transparency around what is taught in school and why and adjusting curriculum adoption processes so that they encourage selection of high-quality options can help incentivize districts to make well-informed choices. In addition, an ongoing process of engaging teachers, supporting them in implementing new curricula, and providing them with the tools to collaborate meaningfully with one another as they familiarize themselves with the associated pedagogical shifts that new materials require should begin at the same time as the adoption process.

Lisette Partelow is the director of K-12 Strategic Initiatives at the Center for American Progress.

Sarah Shapiro is a former research assistant for K-12 Education at the Center for American Progress.

The authors would like to thank the following peer reviewers for their invaluable feedback, which improved this paper greatly: Amy Briggs and Barbara Beske at Student Achievement Partners; Bailey Cato and Ben Jackson at TNTP; Chanda Johnson at the Louisiana Department of Education; Kate Carpenter Bernier and Genevieve Quist Green at Education Resource Strategies; Lauren Weisskirk and Eric Hirsch at EdReports; Lindsey Tepe at New America; Margie Yeager at Chiefs for Change; Michael Lach at Achieve; and Ulrich Boser at the Center for American Progress.

The authors would also like to acknowledge the following people who advised us on this report: Eric Isselhardt at the National Network of State Teachers of the Year; Jessica Wood, formerly of EdCounsel; Keith Dysarz at the Education Trust; Laura Smith and Kate Gerson at UnboundEd; and Shannon Glynn Thomas at the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Correction, September 28, 2018: This report originally provided incorrect information and data about Baltimore County Public Schools' instructional materials. That information has been updated, based on a request from district staff.

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Curriculum Reform in the Nation's Largest School Districts - Center for American Progress

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Download the PDF to view the table in Appendix A: District instructional materials adoption information. Curricula and instructional materials are central to academic success. A 2017 literature review of relevant research provided strong evidence that choosing these materials wisely can be a cost-effective lever for states and districts seeking to improve academic achievement.