The curriculum review group EdReports.org last week released its first round of ratings for grades 3-8 English/language arts materials—and results were mixed.
Of the seven instructional series analyzed, three completely met the benchmarks for being considered aligned to the Common Core State Standards for reading. Three partially met them. One textbook series—Pearson’s Reading Street Common Core for grades 3-6—was deemed fully unaligned.
EdReports.org representatives said they could not draw broad conclusions about the ELA-materials market from such a small sample. But they said the common-core reading standards may be easier to meet than their mathematics counterparts.
The nonprofit, which is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other funders, put out an initial round of reviews focused on K-8 math textbooks in March 2015. (The Gates Foundation also supports some coverage of college- and career-ready standards in Education Week.) The math reviews were mostly skewering, with 17 of the 20 series seen as falling short. One curriculum— Eureka Math, published by Great Minds, a small Washington-based nonprofit—was found to be aligned to the standards for all grades.
