I’ve made no secret of my fervent belief that curriculum is the overlooked lever in education reform. Replacing the slapdash, incoherent, and under-nourishing mélange of materials to which the typical U.S. student is exposed with a more rigorous and thoughtfully sequenced student experience holds promise unmatched by the “structural” reforms favored by policymakers. Over the years, I’ve also crossed swords occasionally with fellow curriculum advocates who labor under the misconception (or allow others to do so) that simply adopting high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) is a magic bullet, or who obsess over minor points of orthodoxy between programs. The larger battle to be fought and won is making curriculum—virtually any decent curriculum—central to school improvement efforts.
In fact, I’ve lately struck from my vocabulary the phrase “curriculum adoption” in favor of curriculum purchases. The word “adoption” implies a much higher bar than just forking out taxpayer dollars for a new program and calling it a day. It’s a serious and sustained effort shared within and between grades to implement curriculum rigorously and with fidelity. Such efforts remain the exception, not the rule. Thus, I’m pleased to recommend a new case study published by Rivet Education, a curriculum-focused consulting group, which lays out the steps needed to turn a curriculum purchase into an adoption process worthy of its name, and that moves the needle on student outcomes.
In 2018, teachers and leaders in Wisconsin’s Mount Horeb Area School District made the decision to adopt a new math curriculum called “Bridges in Mathematics” and produced by The Math Learning Center. Students in this small town in southern Wisconsin were doing reasonably well on state math tests, but teachers had noticed that they “struggled when given more challenging math work” including problems that required them to conceptualize, explain their thinking, or apply math to real-world situations. Mount Horeb embarked on a multi-year “journey” to fully implement Bridges. This involved multiple phases, which Rivet categorizes as “exploration; program installation; initial implementation; consistent implementation; and innovation and sustainability.”
In the “exploration” phase, district officials and (mostly math) teachers “established a vision for effective and equitable instruction, reviewing and evaluating curriculum.” They reviewed high-quality math curricula, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of a number of programs, each ultimately selecting the curriculum that best aligned with the district’s priorities. Next, professional learning providers were recruited (presumably with Rivet’s input and guidance) to educate teachers on mathematical practices, assessing student work, and the role HQIM plays in student learning.
It’s the “program installation” phase that warrants the most attention and contrasts most vividly with what I suspect is the standard experience with curriculum “adoption,” wherein teachers unbox the materials, do a “walk-through” of the new program, and sit for a day or two of professional development led by a district staffer who attended a “train the trainer” workshop at a budget hotel conference room the previous spring. If they get any ongoing professional development after that, it’s minimal. I could have pulled a muscle in my neck nodding at a quote in the case study from Latricia Johnson, a math coach who worked on Mount Horeb’s implementation. “One-and-done, workshop-based professional learning doesn’t work,” she said. “Teachers need a mix of observations, lesson studies, modeling, and [professional learning communities] for a successful professional learning plan.” Hear, hear.
Yet even that elides what is almost certainly the main impediment to successful, sustained curriculum implementation: internal resistance. As my AEI colleague Rick Hess never tires of pointing out, it’s easy to get people do something, but it’s hard to get them to do it well. It’s even harder when teachers are comfortable with what they’ve been doing for years and reluctant to change practice. I wanted to know more about how Mount Horeb built teacher buy-in—not just compliance—without which even excellent curriculum tends to underperform.
Rivet’s case study pairs nicely (or contrasts vividly) with a recent article by Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay, which paints a concerning picture of the field’s relationship with curriculum. At the recent annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, William Zahner, a math professor at San Diego State, presented a survey of more than 1,000 math teachers. “A surprising number of math teachers,” he reported, “particularly at the high school level simply said we don’t use the district of school-provided materials, or they claimed they didn’t have any.”
Only it’s not surprising. We’ve known for a long time that nearly every teacher creates, customizes, or “curates” their own lesson plans and materials (hello, Teachers Pay Teachers!). A little of this is appropriate and beneficial but too much results in lost coherence. There’s also good evidence to suggest that teachers simply aren’t very good judges of rigor when they venture into the “curriculum bazaar.” The main screen they employ is more often than not “student engagement.”
Truth be told, the Mount Horeb “case study” is also a marketing exercise. Rivet is a consulting outfit founded by veterans of the Louisiana Department of Education who helped engineer that state’s ground-breaking curriculum and instructional reforms under then–state chief John White. They work with state and school district leaders to scale the adoption and implementation of HQIM. Nevertheless, the effort they highlight in Wisconsin is a good model for districts that seek to take curriculum seriously or wonder why their “adoptions” disappoint or fail to stick. It’s required reading for state officials, school board members, and district and building leaders who are convinced that HQIM is an essential component of student success. It paints a compelling picture of what it would look like if we took curriculum seriously as a school improvement strategy.
