EdReports was founded about a decade ago to provide independent, Consumer Reports-style reviews of curriculum materials. The nonprofit organization’s analyses quickly gained traction in school systems—and received strong criticism from those who dispute its methods and findings.
School districts representing more than 15 million students have used EdReports to make decisions about instructional materials, including 98 of the 200 largest K-12 systems in the country, according to the organization’s website.
Its reviews cover English-language arts, math, science, and pre-K. As EdReports’ influence has grown, its detractors have complained that some of its reviews don’t align with scientific research on effective curriculum, particularly in reading.
Education Week caught up with Lewis D. Ferebee, who in May was announced as EdReports’ new chief executive officer. Ferebee stepped down in June after eight years as chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools, where he was lauded for overseeing a recovery in math and reading scores following the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that, he was superintendent of the Indianapolis public schools and served as a school and district administrator in North Carolina.
Ferebee referred to some goals and priorities for EdReports that are outlined in greater detail in the organization’s 2026-29 strategic plan.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Take us into the mind of a district chief when judging which large-scale, expensive curriculum products to purchase.
Obviously, there’s lots of curriculum for districts to choose from. I think for us, in my journey, in DCPS, specifically, when we [thought] about adoption, we first wanted to determine the alignment with our local standards. I want to ensure that the materials [were] flexible towards the needs of our student population.
We often [did] pilot curriculum before we [went] to scale. And that allowed us to make decisions about what it feels like to implement the curriculum in our district and how we might best utilize that curriculum of driving outcomes for our students.
What are the biggest changes you have seen in curriculum, adoption, and choices for districts?
Over time, EdReports was a driver for this, more high-quality materials are now available. And for that reason, it makes the decisionmaking process a little bit more complex.
Because of the [EdReports] reviews, the attention on high-quality instructional materials, districts now have been able to narrow the options, even though there’s a broader scope of materials available to inform their decisions about adoption.
What is the most important thing EdReports is providing to districts?
EdReports has been really useful in narrowing a process for selection, which has led to stronger adoption. It’s led to different behaviors and responses from publishers who improve their materials in response to our criteria. The pilot process now is clearer, and there’s more evidence for districts to review. The goal is [for] educators [to] have, in front of them, the best materials that support the students in their classrooms in their schools.
EdReports has certainly raised the bar and will continue to evolve as the market evolves. As a result, we do see better quality materials in alignment. What we are exploring is how might we ensure that there’s efficacy with those materials in terms of student outcomes.
Critics say EdReports reviews have been misleadingly positive in some cases and have been slow to reflect the ‘science of reading’ principles in others. Are those criticisms valid or not?
Well, the way I look at it is while we raised the floor, publishers have been responsive. And so, as materials will evolve, we will evolve in the way we think about our reviews.
EdReports has always evolved as tools, research, educator input, user feedback, have evolved. And we take that feedback seriously, from what I’ve seen in the organization, and the way we think about our improvement and evolution of the tools.
The reviews, obviously, remain foundational in the rigor and the teacher judgment, but we also want to be sure that we are responsive to the field.
I’m confident that, as research evolves, and we know more, we’ve always been responsive. There will always be opportunity to elevate clear signals around implementation, usability, coherence, evidence, all those things that we believe are strong signals for districts in terms of how they use and think about curriculum.
So I think you will see strong evidence that we’ve been responsive to feedback, and our new tools certainly provide a high level of information that districts can use and count on as evidence-based.
Do you think EdReports has made meaningful changes to address those critiques?
In terms of the criticism at that point in time, as it relates to ELA, we have certainly evolved beyond that, and our new tools represent strong criteria for what should be happening as relates to English-language arts instruction.
How are EdReports standards for judging math curriculum changing to account for best practices?
I do think, as similar to English-language arts, as we know more and the materials evolved, first we want to make sure there’s alignment. But we want to ensure that our reviews reflect best-in-class information and research about how students should be learning math.
And it will continue to evolve as with English-language arts as well. The urgency around that certainly is strong, as math is still the content area that we are still the most sluggish in, in recovery from the pandemic. And I’m very much interested in early grades math, because if we can provide strong foundational skills in math, whether that’s pre-K, kindergarten, through 2nd grade, we’ll set our students up for better success as they matriculate through middle school and high school.
The District of Columbia schools were one exception in a nationwide decline in academic performance. To what do you attribute that?
So, I’m proud of DCPS. DC Public Schools was recently ranked number one in the nation in both English-language arts and math recovery, from the pandemic. There are lots of strategies that I could point to. Obviously, having high-quality instructional material is one of them. The way that we approached professional learning was one that was heavily rooted in coaching, in a way that has been meaningful for our educators.
D.C. has done a really good job and is a great example of how, when you bring great materials, with great professional learning experiences, to educators, they’re able to elevate student achievement.
What else might be on the horizon soon for EdReports?
We have some strategic priorities. We just entered recently in the pre-K space to provide signals of quality for pre-K. It’s very timely as there’s a national interest in creating readiness and ensuring students have the prerequisite skills going to kindergarten.
Some of our other strategic priorities include looking at the tech space, not only utilizing tech to help us with our reviews, but all the tech resources that are in the classroom.
