State boards should play a more active role in helping schools select strong, research-based curricula, argues David Steiner, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy.
In most states, schools use a patchwork of instructional materials, which can weaken efforts to improve instruction, he said. That approach also contrasts with the practices of countries at the top of international academic rankings, where schools use uniform state, provincial, or national curricula.
Variations in curricula make it difficult to weigh how well schools meet state standards, Steiner said. And they don’t allow states to align teacher-training and professional development programs with specific materials.
Such concerns have animated discussions over state policies designed to overhaul reading instruction. An Education Week tracker shows that 43 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or adopted policies to align literacy instruction with the “science of reading.” Thirty-five of those outline requirements for “evidence-based” materials or require some level of state oversight in districts’ selection.
Education Week spoke with Steiner about the role states should play in selecting high-quality instructional materials—and encouraging districts to use them.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the case for state boards having more oversight of curricula and instructional materials?
The fundamental problem is this: In many states and many districts and schools, teachers are still acting as DJs, creating what might be called idiosyncratic playlists of instructional materials. The research we have indicates that about 80% of those materials are about below grade level.
In addition, providing any kind of coherent professional learning to teachers who don’t share a standard curriculum is, frankly, close to mission impossible.
Every state is a member of the Council of Chief State School Officers, but 35 states are not part of the CCSSO’s High-Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Development Network [a collaborative of states that support their districts in adopting standards-aligned curricula and instructional materials]. The real question is: Why not? Why are so many states still resisting leadership in moving us from this totally fragmented system of curriculum? That’s where school boards can really have an impact: by pushing their state chiefs in the right direction.
What level of influence should states have over instructional materials? And how should they exert it?
You can look at a number of strong models, whether it be Louisiana, Tennessee, or Mississippi.
The fundamental push is to create with teachers, as [former state superintendent] John White did originally in Louisiana, a short list of high-quality instructional curriculum, and then say to the districts: “Please select off this list, and we will incentivize you to do so. It’s not compulsory, but we will make the right thing to do the easy thing to do by reducing procurement red tape, and by supporting your professional development for teachers.”
The state can both create a more manageable, narrower list of options and then signal its strong support for adoption of one of those options. In states that have done this, adoption is very high—over 90% in K-8 and elementary schools.
Even the groups that vet curricula have faced criticisms about their criteria. Can we trust that state board members have the depth of knowledge to weigh these decisions?
No. I speak now as someone who served on a state board as well as being a state commissioner, so I’ve been on both sides of that table. But you’re quite right. I mean, many of them have no preparation. They’re well-meaning, and we need to support them.
What Louisiana did is right. They brought really high-achieving teachers from across the state, in both math and ELA. They looked at the then-available best ELA curriculum and didn’t like any of them. Instead of telling them to “get lost,” [White] brought them into a process that created a whole new state curriculum called Guidebooks.
It’s not on the state board to do the choosing. They should prompt their commissioners to do what is necessary.
After adopting curriculum, how can states support teachers in using it well?
Dumping anything onto teachers and just saying, “do it,” is a recipe for failure. After years of work, we’re learning that implementation is everything.
Acquiring the curriculum is step one. Then, how do you organize implementation? And we have begun to realize that generic professional development is almost useless. It has to be specific to the curriculum. It has to be based on classroom observations by coaches or experienced teachers who know the curriculum. There has to be immediate feedback. This cannot be done in sort of weekend or summer trainings that are divorced from the classroom.
Even in places where teachers are equipped with these instructional materials, a lot of them have trouble differentiating for students, so they supplement with materials that aren’t vetted.
Yes, and we have to be careful about that.
It used to be that everyone went “tut tut tut, tut,” but I’ve pointed out that in your average urban public school classroom, more than half of your students are well below grade level, right? So let’s be rational about this.
If you’re facing 25 or 30 16-year-olds, and 70% of them are well below grade level—often more than a year below grade level in our urban centers or rural schools—would you teach a grade-level curriculum just as it comes? And that’s why we have to work on pathways, accelerated pathways for the students who need it, right?
We have got to think of this across a whole system of the school and the community. This is a deep challenge for those of us, and I obviously include myself, who believe that it is essential that we expose all students right to strong materials.
What’s the strongest argument against your point of view?
One criticism that never goes away is that teachers know their own students best. So how can we come in from outside and say, “Use this curriculum”?
Teachers do know their own students best, but they then end up trying to be two things at once. They try to remain effective teachers, which is crucial, and they become curriculum designers, which no one has trained them to do. They go into this sort of solitary effort [of selecting materials], which nationally takes [an average of] 6-7 hours a week and away from teaching [to] preparing for teaching.
I would say the analogy is this: If you’re learning to cook, I don’t let you just throw the ingredients together. I advise you to follow a recipe. And as you get better, the recipes can get more complex. And then, as you get really effective, you can make substitutions. And you may even find a better way or a better ingredient.
Good curricula are not straitjackets. They will have suggestions for teachers of a variety of ways of how to bring this material into a classroom effectively. It’s not like we’re telling them to “read this, and then this, and then this.” It’s a set of recipes with some options, and that’s what a good curriculum should be.
