As the Common Core State Standards have reached into schools and classrooms, we’ve written a lot about the lack of good, aligned instructional resources for them. We’ve written, too, about projects such as EQuIP, which are trying to fill that vacuum by analyzing materials and posting their reviews.
Since we first wrote about EQuIP, back in February, the organization has added many new sets of math and English/language arts materials to its website. About 50 lessons and units with positive ratings are now part of EQuIP’s online library of exemplars. (EQuIP doesn’t post the ones with negative reviews.)
As we reported in our story, EQuIP, a project of the Washington-based group Achieve, offers the exemplars, along with teacher reviews, for anyone to use. But it also posts the rubrics that its reviewers use to analyze the lessons and units, so teachers and administrators anywhere can use those when they’re writing their own materials or evaluating materials being offered by vendors.
Anyone can submit lessons or units for review, although to date none have been submitted by the biggest-name education publishers. Among the instructional materials that have received “exemplar” or “exemplar if improved” ratings—indicating they are well aligned to the common core, or will be with minor revisions—are lessons or units designed by the Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee departments of education; Core Knowledge; Common Core Inc.; Expeditionary Learning, Student Achievement Partners, the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Chicago, Cleveland, Washoe County, Nev., and Fresno, Calif., school systems.
The extent to which teachers and administrators agree with these ratings remains to be seen, of course. But the growing list of resources on the site is one response to the need for common core instructional materials. Other efforts, as we’ve reported, include the for-profit Learning List, and the American Federation of Teachers’ ShareMyLesson.