If you wanted to improve medical care, would you focus on hospital administration and patient insurance? Or would you look at the treatment doctors were giving patients? Would you try to improve a sports team’s won-loss record by focusing on stadium layout and the team’s travel schedule? Then why, ask Brookings’ Matthew Chingos and Russ Whitehurst, do education policy makers focus most of their attention on academic standards, teacher evaluation, and school accountability policies? Shouldn’t we be looking instead at instructional materials?
“There is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning—effects that rival in size those that are associated with differences in teacher effectiveness,” the two write in a new paper from Brookings, Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Common Core.
“Whereas improving teacher quality through changes in the preparation and professional development of teachers and the human resources policies surrounding their employment is challenging, expensive, and time-consuming, making better choices among available instructional materials should be relatively easy, inexpensive, and quick.”
There’s one big hurdle to clear in correcting this rather obvious problem: Little effort has been made by the field to differentiate effective curricular materials from ineffective ones. In fact, in most states, districts and schools, it’s nearly impossible to know what materials are being used at all.
“In every state except one, it is impossible to find out what materials districts are currently using without contacting the districts one at a time to ask them. And the districts may not even know what materials they use if adoption decisions are made by individual schools. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which has the mission of collecting and disseminating information related to education in the U.S., collects no information on the usage of particular instructional materials.”
Chingos and Whitehurst predict the blindness on curriculum will become a critical problem for Common Core Standards implementation. “Publishers of instructional materials are lining up to declare the alignment of their materials with the Common Core standards using the most superficial of definitions,” they note. “The Common Core standards will only have a chance of raising student achievement if they are implemented with high-quality materials, but there is currently no basis to measure the quality of materials. Efforts to improve teacher effectiveness will also fall short if they focus solely on the selection and retention of teachers and ignore the instructional tools that teachers are given to practice their craft.”
The paper offers up a number of suggestions: State education agencies should collect data from districts on the instructional materials in use in their schools. also wants to see the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) “put their considerable weight behind the effort to improve the collection of information on instructional materials in order to create an environment in which states, districts, and schools will be able to choose the materials most likely to help students master the content laid out in the Common Core standards.”
Chingos and Whitehurst are dead-on in their critique of ed reform’s indifference to curriculum and materials. When we focus on the mechanism by which schools are created, managed, financed or evaluated, we are assuming that what kids learn, and with which materials, is pretty much settled, or doesn’t really matter. All that’s left to do is figure out what works in terms of delivery of instruction and grow it, or figure out what doesn’t work and shut it down. Any teacher who has worked with different literacy or math programs can easily attest this is not the case.
Specifically on materials, it’s imperative to know the most effective software programs for all subjects, at all levels. Do Chingos and Whitehurst focus on this aspect of the materials discussion?
While this will intimidate some and frighten others, learning via a computer is gaining traction in public education nationwide. A number of states have already mandated at least one online course as a high school graduation requirement. As well, forward thinking classroom teachers have been using software programs as part of their classroom routine for years.
Quality programs will also be instrumental in helping instructors with their online/distance course offerings.
Comment by Paul Hoss — April 13, 2012 @ 6:39 pm
It’s even better: in HS, we may adopt a textbook (or be forced to adopt it), we’ll even write a curriculum to go with the textbook… and then we’ll not use it for one reason or another. Go figure.
Comment by Exo — April 13, 2012 @ 8:31 pm
As a teacher of English in a high school, I’m not surprised that there’s so little here (including in the graphic posted above) about instructional materials for reading and other elements of Language Arts, compared to “curricular materials” for math, especially elementary-level math. The absence of a right-pointing arrow that says “Better curriculum, 2nd [or 8th, or 11th] grade Language Arts” doesn’t shock me. Notice how in math, curriculum materials’ effect exceeds teacher effect, while in reading it is the opposite (well, to be more precise, there is no indication of latter at all). Frankly, I’d be surprised to learn that there is a secondary English textbook good enough to correlate with better student performance; I can’t say I’ve ever seen such a thing.
When we talk instructional materials, especially for high school, we certainly need to talk about high-quality novels and other texts (not necessarily textbooks). At the same time we have to recognize that a better set of readings is of little value – ironically/tragically, it could be argued that particularly challenging works might be of negative value if they demand nuanced and innovative delivery — without a teacher who can figure out on his or her own how to deliver it, and be dynamic enough to fine-tune that delivery for this year’s set of kids.
I’m glad for elementary math that there are materials out there whose superior quality is documented. I hope a misbegotten belief in unlimited equivalency doesn’t spur materials-madness in all disciplines. Teachers need good materials, to be sure, but teachers are not their materials, and different areas have wildly different needs. Do so-called reformers recognize both of these differences?
Comment by Carl Rosin — April 14, 2012 @ 9:07 am
Robert-I respectfully disagree with the statement that ed reform is indifferent to curriculum. The problem is the curriculum preferred makes the true nature of ed reform readily apparent. So the powers that be change the subject or actively obfuscate.
There have been several interesting developments in this regard recently.
First Pearson’s use of “coherent with” instead of “aligned to” is the tip off to something I already know. Common Core is not about a body of knowledge. It’s a philosophy of what education should be doing to change individual mindsets.
Secondly, I was reading North Carolina’s RTT app as I am dealing with a bunch of transplants from Charlotte-Meck as follow the money and spread bad ideas administrators. They kept mentioning Growth so I went looking for what that term meant. Apparently part of what NC’s winning RTT app is going to pilot is developing new curricular materials for Common Core that are to be cloud based. My conversations with tecchies tells me that will effectively wall off classroom curricular materials from nosey peering from you or me or Hirsch or Sandra Stotsky or Jay Greene. No more troubling details.
Finally if you follow the digital literacy/e-textbooks push, its advocates always trip up and reveal that their real push is away from print literacy itself.
Just a few things to think about. I have been very busy.
Comment by StudentofHistory — April 14, 2012 @ 9:40 am
Wasn’t this the claim of Everyday Math? I know a lot of teacher who say the materials look great, they have lots of manipulatives and games, but are a disaster in most class rooms. The challenge with a lot of materials is they may be ok to great in an ideal class room, but do not reflect most classrooms and thus their value is further compromised. I like many others have been struck when I have volunteered at my kids schools at the number of shrink wrapped workbooks, textbooks still in closets and the amount of photocopied materials still coming home not related to these materials.
Comment by DC Parent — April 14, 2012 @ 9:49 am
DC Parent is the closest to the truth when noting “a disaster in most class rooms.” Curriculum and instruction are not independent variables: some teachers can use some things while others need other things to get the same idea across. That’s fine, and that’s the way schools, and classrooms are: the factory model was a short term compromise with weaving a common cloth. We now have a common core approach that builds sharing, but does not need an identical process inaccessible to most students, teachers, learners, parents or others.
In differentiating curriculum and matching that differentiation with staff, we need not abandon – nor even compromise – the common core of key concepts, including even their sequence and there priorities. In some classrooms, “the origins of the second world war” might be as seen by the French, in others by the British, in others by the Indians, and in still others by the US, and yet all achieve the same end of clarifying the breakdown of international diplomacy and the construction of defensive – later offensive – capacity. In other words, calls for a common book are antediluvian – before the deluge of electronic media. One might deliver precisely the same concept via a film, a novel, or a lecture, depending on the age, attitude, and skills of teacher and learner.
That’s why its nice not to be a Pearson’s payroll.
Comment by Joe Beckmann — April 14, 2012 @ 4:24 pm
“if you wanted to improve medical care …”, isn’t that what we’re getting from Washington? Maybe your point is that Obamacare is not about improving care.
Other than that, I agree with you and your assessment of most education proposals. And like most “solutions” to education, health care, and the economy, it is NEVER about anything other than advancing someone’s leverage.
Comment by Ewaldoh — April 14, 2012 @ 7:56 pm
Joe-
Not to be mean but I didn’t come up with my pen name lightly. Your point about history makes no sense.
And if you think pitching to the analytical, conceptual function of the brain via curriculum vs a purely visual approach are equivalent in function, you are wrong.
I don’t quite get the remark on Pearson’s. I just figure they are carrying out Barber’s vision. As if this were the UK 15 years ago or we are all to be Mckinsey clients.
Comment by StudentofHistory — April 14, 2012 @ 9:06 pm
Key concepts.
Think about that phrase. Not what happened in our past that’s important to who we became as a nation or how the world came to be in its present form.
Not the wisdom of the ages to be grasped as well as possible by each of us. To be built on by some of us. For the benefit of almost all of us.
Not the phonetic fluency in reading that enables an eager and able brain to carry on a dialogue via print with some of the finest minds who have ever lived.
Who gets to decide what are the key concepts?
Because that phrase is in use all over almost as much as silos and best practices.
Comment by StudentofHistory — April 14, 2012 @ 9:15 pm
Student,
“Who gets to decide what are the key concepts?” You don’t sound too excited about Common Core, and I’m disappointed with your viewpoint.
I see it as Mann and Jefferson saw it, as the potential “great equalizer.” Kids from Mississippi and other anemic states will finally have access to the same rich body of knowledge we’d want for our own children or that Massachusetts has for their students; Finally.
In many states it is a significant improvement over what they (did not) have. would it be better if we had the Core Knowledge curriculum in every state? Of course, most of us believe it would be but, we have to start somewhere. CCSs are also an enormous improvement over fifty states going in fifty different directions; again, Massachusetts (Stosky, et. al.) versus standards for dodo birds, especially in many poorer Southern states.
Comment by Paul Hoss — April 16, 2012 @ 7:01 pm
Why was tax-payer money wasted on CCS when MA’s standards could easily and much less expensively been used across the nation.
Do MA’s high test scores (NAEP and PISA) mean they have excellent instructional tools? If yes, they should have been adopted too…
Comment by tim-10-ber — April 16, 2012 @ 8:03 pm
MA’s high test scores are mostly a reflection of that state’s demographics. I grew up in MA and it had some of the highest test scores in the nation long before there were state standards and the MCAS. High parental education levels, relatively high median household income, relatively low levels of divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing, and I hate to say it, but a relatively low percentage of African-American and Latino students. If the overall American public school population looked like MA’s, our average test scores would be quite a bit higher.
Comment by Crimson Wife — April 17, 2012 @ 12:38 am
tim-10-ber,
There were a number of Massachusetts DOE people on the committee to develop the Common Core Standards. While I wasn’t one of them, I’d have to believe they were listened to closely during the discussions. As well, the CCS were supposed to be a “common/federal” project, not one state simply forcing their standards on the other 49 states. From a perception view alone, this had to occur.
Crimson Wife,
You’re correct to a degree on the demographics of Massachusetts being the reason for our academic success. However, let me point out, in my opinion anyway, the major reason for our success has been the “take no prisoners” philosophy as in accept no excuses for failure. There is a clear and visible expectation that every student can learn, without exception and that excuses are not accepted.
Back when MCAS first started counting toward graduation, the Boston Globe (Michelle Bombardere (sp?)) ran a heart warming story about a high school sophomore from Arlington, MA, a suburb just outside Boston. Katy Bartlett, was s special needs student whose mother exemplified this no excuses philosophy. Katy’s mother insisted the school give her all the help she was entitled to under IDEA and Chapter 766. Katy got the help she needed and with her hard work and determination passed the MCAS test as a sophomore ON HER FIRST TRY. The kicker, Katy Bartlett was a Down Syndrome student. Well, if that didn’t shut the critics up on the demands of MCAS, and put an emphasis on the imperative of HIGH expectations. There were rumors that Katy Bartlett wound up going to Dartmouth College but I lost track of her after awhile. Amazing, amazing story of determination.
Comment by Paul Hoss — April 17, 2012 @ 7:50 am
Paul-
Common Core to me is the actual implementation as it is planned and being put in place. I went quiet because if anyone had realized how thoroughly I was tracking what was going on, what I was downloading and hard copying would have disappeared onto password-protected servers. If that happens now, it’s too late. I have my story and I can document it to a level that makes it a slamdunk. I am a lawyer. Figuring out industries, especially ones that are highly regulated and protected with lots of rent seeking behavior is what I know how to do.
I know how. I know why. I know the Orwellian vocabulary meant to mislead and the actual meanings. And the pedigree of who did the defining and why that matters. Georgia’s Performance Standards have repeatedly been cited as the pilot of Common Core. I have the declarations of the insiders when they believe only their acolytes will be listening or reading. I have tracked all the links to Goals 2000 and School to Work and how what was politically unpopular was renamed, broken out, and approached from a different direction.
I am building a blog at the moment so we can monitor the actual implementation of Common Core in states and districts. The real time difference between the rhetoric and the reality and how much of a difference being a Race to the Top state makes to what and how fast. The regional accreditors who are mostly combined under a single governing holding company is driving a great deal of how this must be implemented in the classroom. This will allow that kind of monitoring as well. For me reading the correspondence on Wake County, NC where the accrediting Pres told the school board what they had to do, who could and could not represent them, and that they were not entitled to have access to a lawyer in meeting with him is outrageous.
There is a higher ed report that came out in January where the accreditors are being pushed to be the enforcers for a vision that the feds could not constitutionally enact themselves. Very troubling stuff going on that is light years from the Common Core rhetoric. I deal with facts and reality and history and the economic consequences of similar previous attempts.
Everyone learning the same key concepts and that’s all and having their personalities monitored and molded via state sanction has a tragic history. If that’s where the facts and declarations lead, that’s what we need to be talking about. Not a dream of common solid content for all which was only a political selling point to gain adoption and enactment.
Comment by StudentofHistory — April 17, 2012 @ 12:17 pm
Student,
What you’re describing sounds somewhat congruous with the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education developed by the NEA in 1918. As Diane Ravitch noted in her book, Left Back, Simon and Schuster, 2000, “The driving purpose behind the seven Cardinal Principles was socialization, teaching students to fit into society. The overriding goal was social efficiency, not the realization of individual desire for self-improvement.”
If this is, in fact, what Common Core is out to produce this is scarey stuff, borderline “Big Brother.” This sounds like LDH and the wacky progressives but NOT Barack Obama, at least not to me.
Comment by Paul Hoss — April 17, 2012 @ 6:22 pm
[...] over at the Core Knowledge blog, there’s a discussion of the impact of instructional materials spurred by the release of a new report from the Brookings [...]
Pingback by Blog Bites | COE Policy Blog — April 22, 2012 @ 10:53 pm
Beyond the instructional materials, WHAT WE CHOOSE TO TEACH is essential, which I believe is the foundation of ‘Core Knowledge.’
While the textbook we have for Algebra 1 in my middle school is Saxon, The CURRICULUM I teach follows a more traditional Algebra 1 path. Once I establish the CONTENT of what my students learn, I use a multitude of instructional materials that engage that content. Yes, my students get ‘worksheets,’ but I align those worksheets to the CONTENT of the unit/lesson. My students also must READ the textbook, and I NEVER answer a question they can find in their text.
Choose first what to teach, then acquire materials that support that content.
Comment by Peter Ford — April 29, 2012 @ 12:59 pm