澳门跑狗论坛

The Clark County, Nev., school district has worked hard for several years to get lessons aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards into teachers鈥� hands. As a result, the district鈥檚 director of K-12 science, Sheryl Colgan, does not mince words when asked what her teachers thought of a batch of newly published, purportedly aligned high school textbooks.

鈥淭he books were disappointingly very traditional, across the board,鈥� she said.

For anyone who lived through the last decade with the advent of the Common Core State Standards and the challenge of finding curricula to match them, Colgan鈥檚 assessment will sound familiar.

Five years after the NGSS rolled out, districts are sorting through a nascent, untested curriculum landscape that鈥檚 full of murky claims鈥攍eaving both students and teachers in a tough spot as they try to put standards into action.

The challenge is accelerating, even as two developments promise to shake up the marketplace this fall. California, an influential bellwether, will adopt science curricula, and EdReports, a nonprofit that releases Consumer Reports-style curriculum reviews, will unveil its first look at science series.

Until then, though, many districts鈥� main decision on science curricula comes down to this: Buy now, or wait?

Tension Points

Though too often viewed as an afterthought, the vetting and adoption of curriculum affects many more students nationally than do charter schools or even the recent wave of teacher strikes.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia now use the science standards, which were developed by a group of states and the national nonprofit Achieve. Within those states, districts鈥� purchase of new instructional materials stands to be their largest outlay in science for a decade.

While highly praised by science educators, the NGSS are exhausting in their complexity. Student performance is supposed to be 鈥渢hree dimensional,鈥� reflecting science and engineering practices (such as devising and using models), themes that cut across disciplines (like recognizing patterns), and the core ideas within physical, earth, and life science.

鈥淭hese standards are really complex, and I don鈥檛 know if there鈥檚 general agreement in the field about what curriculum alignment looks like,鈥� said Eric Hirsch, the executive director of EdReports.

On the one hand, districts appear to be casting a warier eye than they did just a few years ago. States adopted the NGSS more slowly and organically than the common core, and districts鈥� relative hesitancy to buy new series suggests they鈥檙e waiting for the market to shake out, said Peter McLaren, who helped to write the science standards and is now an educational consultant.

Many districts, he said, have turned to tools like those developed by Achieve to analyze new materials for evidence that they adhere to the standards.

鈥淲hat that did more than anything else was make districts and teachers very aware that there鈥檚 a lot of snake oil out there,鈥� McLaren said. 鈥淚 think it contributes to the hesitancy of running to a publisher for a supplement or a curriculum right away, which is not necessarily a bad thing.鈥�

At the same time, though, states and districts want to avoid repeating the curriculum vacuum that was at least partly responsible for the political backlash to the common core. Teachers鈥� goodwill toward those expectations crumbled as states linked them to tests and evaluations before ensuring that teachers could access lots of matching, high-quality materials.

With more states expecting to update their science tests in the next few years, though, the pressure to secure materials is growing.

A Glimpse at the Market

Districts face major obstacles in trying to get a good handle on what鈥檚 out there: It鈥檚 labor intensive and it鈥檚 costly.

鈥淢aterials selection in general isn鈥檛 frequently given the time, effort, energy, and resources it deserves,鈥� said Matt Krehbiel, the director of science at Achieve. 鈥淭o really dig into the materials and look for evidence of these innovations takes time. And that means either during the summer or getting teachers out of classrooms for multiple days. And that鈥檚 not typical in a lot of districts.鈥�

On its own, Achieve recently began to review and provide feedback on discrete NGSS units submitted by both commercial and noncommercial developers, and to make the best of the free materials available for download. More than 100 units have been submitted, but so far, the nonprofit has only given eight a high enough score to warrant posting.

And in one major departure from the common-core era, the NGSS has not yet led to the creation of a free, complete open-source curriculum in the mold of EngageNY. That resource created by the state of New York using federal funds in the early days of the common core, remains a popular source of lessons. (Officials at Achieve, several states, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has separately invested millions to support the implementation of the NGSS, are discussing the possibility of producing an open educational resource for science similar to EngageNY.)

In the meantime, most of the major education publishers have finally crafted new science series aimed at the NGSS marketplace鈥攕ome in preparation for California, which began to review series last month and will complete the adoption process this fall.

In interviews, publishers expressed confidence that their new products faithfully embody the standards, while acknowledging that alignment is, at its heart, a subjective exercise.

鈥淚 think there will be debates about how to interpret NGSS. Do you have to have all the [science and engineering] practices all the time in every lesson, or can you do them over a unit period?鈥� said Marty Creel, Discovery Education鈥檚 chief academic officer. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 something we occasionally hear talking to districts and teachers.鈥�

Phenomena Puzzle

Clark County teachers who have spent some time digging into commercially available materials already list some common problems.

See Also

Free Online Event: Gateways to STEM Education

澳门跑狗论坛 offers you a big-picture look at how states, districts, and schools can overcome the obstacles that prevent more students from succeeding in STEM as they progress through school.

Oct. 23, 2018 | 1 to 3 p.m. ET
Register now.

Free Online Event: Gateways to STEM Education

澳门跑狗论坛 offers you a big-picture look at how states, districts, and schools can overcome the obstacles that prevent more students from succeeding in STEM as they progress through school.

Oct. 23, 2018 | 1 to 3 p.m. ET
Register now.

The standards envision teaching that鈥檚 anchored in phenomena鈥攆or instance, why clothes fresh from the dryer stick together or why adding soap to a pan of water will cause floating toothpicks to move to one side鈥攖hat students gradually explore and learn how to explain scientifically.

Many textbooks have interesting, even worthy activities for students to engage in but don鈥檛 coherently build students鈥� understanding of each phenomenon, said Loretta Asay, Clark County鈥檚 coordinator for secondary science.

鈥淧henomenon should drive all of the instruction for a group of lessons, and kids are constantly trying to figure out, explain, or add to their understanding of each phenomena. And that is overall hugely missing in everything we鈥檝e seen,鈥� she said. 鈥淭eachers will use a discrepant event to get kids鈥� attention, but the learning experiences aren鈥檛 centered on coming back and constantly adding to that phenomenon.鈥�

Few independent reviews of materials exist to guide selections. And even the dozen or so states that formally review materials vary in how strict or lenient they are. California, for instance, approved dozens of common-core textbooks in 2014 and 2015, while Louisiana put a far smaller proportion on its list of top-quality resources.

As for research, most publishers release field studies when they put out a new curriculum. But they are often based on the teaching of one unit or lesson in classrooms that may not reflect the student demographics of the nation at large.

There鈥檚 certainly an irony to the fact that few鈥攊f any鈥攐f the science materials currently on the market are backed by independent empirical evidence. But that鈥檚 one of the Catch-22s of curriculum: Only after one has actually been used in classrooms for a few years can researchers start to examine its impact.

Three case studies show the range of approaches districts are taking to the science-curriculum challenge. Oakland, one of several districts in California to implement the NGSS early, decided to craft its own curricula rather than selecting a series. Teachers took the lead in writing and revising units around themes. Much of that process required detailed research鈥攆or example, as when teachers wanted to write a unit on water quality, a nod to the droughts that have devastated swaths of California.

鈥淚t created incredible buy-in, and the development process itself was the professional development,鈥� said Caleb Cheung, a former director of science programs for the district. 鈥淭hey learned not just about how to create curriculum, but how to implement it, and it changed their own understanding of teaching science.鈥�

The downside?

鈥淚t ended up being way harder than we thought. And it鈥檚 expensive, because you鈥檙e covering teachers鈥� time, and compensation is hard to come by,鈥� Cheung said.

Indeed, building a complete curriculum from scratch is beyond the capacity of many districts, over half of which serve fewer than 1,000 students.

Look, for example, to the 750-student Mountainside, N.J., district. Leaders there wanted a resource that both improved students鈥� ability to approach science through inquiry and could take advantage of the district鈥檚 1-to-1 Chromebook initiative.

Under Principal Kimberly Richards, a team of teachers began by studying the framework that NGSS was based on before taking a whack at commercial materials. A contact in the state education department pointed Mountainside to the reviews conducted by Oregon, currently the only NGSS state that has finished its adoption process. Meanwhile, Richards and Nancy Lubarsky, the district鈥檚 superintendent, surveyed science supervisors across the state and looked for patterns among districts with higher science-test scores.

Ultimately, Mountainside selected two commercial series but contracted to use them only for a few years as it keeps a watchful eye on implementation.

鈥淲e weren鈥檛 signing away ourselves for the next seven years, and we can modify and change them if something else comes along that鈥檚 more aligned with what the state wants,鈥� said Lubarsky.

Finally, there is Clark County itself. It began by providing sample lessons, and as teachers became more familiar with the standards, had teams use the Achieve alignment tools to 鈥渞etract鈥� lessons that were less well aligned and disseminate stronger ones.

That led up to the high school textbook review. And despite some overall problems with the high school texts, the district review committee approved a few that schools can buy if they want. The district鈥檚 Colgan and Asay expect schools with high numbers of rookie teachers, who are more likely to depend on a textbook, to use them as a support, though they add that the books will need to be supplemented.

鈥淭hat was the conversation the committee had: 鈥楾his isn鈥檛 that great, it鈥檚 not really that aligned, but I have some teachers in this school who need some of this,鈥� 鈥� Asay said. 鈥淚t was tough. [The committee] made some difficult decisions.鈥�