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 91ÖÆƬ³§ÊÓƵ’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.