More than a third of the 30 biggest school districts in the United States are not using any math or English/language arts curricula that are rated highly for alignment to state standards, a new study from the Center for American Progress finds.
The report examined how 4th and 8th-grade math and ELA curricula used by millions of students were rated by either the independent nonprofit EdReports.org or the Louisiana Department of Education’s annotated reviews. The researchers determined that 26 districts had known curricular materials, and two school systems—Montgomery County in Maryland and the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Texas—had developed their own materials.
About one-third of the materials that districts reported adopting or recommending were highly rated by EdReports.org, meaning that they met expectations for alignment with the Common Core State Standards. Twenty-four of the 26 districts with known curricula are using or recommending at least one curriculum with a low rating, the researchers found.
