We recently received the following message from a principal:

I’m trying to understand the relationship between essential outcomes and a math program. My interpretation is that the math program would support the students’ learning of the essential outcomes that our staff derived from our state’s standards.

My elementary school is the only elementary school of our eight in the district that has worked at implementing the tenets of a PLC. Someone at our central office is pushing the use of a program and its pacing guide as the district’s curriculum. I’m concerned because my staff worked hard last year at clarifying 5 essential outcomes and developing common formative assessments. Either I misled my staff or I’m going to have to inform and influence my central office person to see the issue differently.

This principal’s dilemma is not unique. In this age of accountability and high-stakes testing, we have noticed an increasing number of teachers and principals experience a growing tension as they work together to build professional learning communities within districts and states which have adopted prescribed curriculum programs and textbooks that must be "implemented with fidelity."

We contend any program or textbook should be 1) aligned with state and national standards and 2) considered a resource to support teacher dialogue and decisions rather than a mandate that eliminates the need for collaborative professional dialogue regarding the learning most essential to students.

Schools and districts benefit when each teacher (not just a committee or textbook publisher) participates in a collaborative process to clarify the essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions students must acquire. Ultimately, it is not the intended curriculum (the curriculum designated in a math program, textbook, or district curriculum guide) that will have the most powerful impact on student learning. For too long, districts have pretended that if they just purchase the right program and merely distribute it to individual teachers, each teacher will interpret it in a uniform way, assign equal priority to each standard, pace the curriculum consistently, assess student learning in a common way, etc. We have a century of evidence that this is not true. We cannot "teacher-proof" a curriculum.

Ultimately, it is the implemented curriculum, or what actually gets taught when the door gets closed, that has the far greater impact on achievement. Teachers who have worked with colleagues to become students of district resources and state standards, discussed with teachers at the next grade level what skills are most critical to students entering that grade, clarified the essential learnings, established common pacing, developed common formative assessments, and most important, committed to one another that they will honor the decisions made by the team are far more likely to provide students with the guaranteed and viable curriculum Dr. Robert Marzano has found impacts student learning so powerfully.

We would hope all teachers--through their collaborative study--will find value in and honor the district’s programs and textbooks as terrific resources. We also hope district central office staffs will honor the hard work and professionalism of teachers in every school and allow the programs and textbooks to be utilized as resources, not as lockstep curricula that remove teachers from curricular and instructional decisions.

Finally, results should drive the process for making this decision. If teams can demonstrate that their approach leads to higher levels of student achievement, the district should learn from those teams. If the results indicate student achievement is not improving, then teams should be willing to take a hard look at their curriculum, instruction, assessments, and adult learning needs

Wishing You and Your Students a Great Year of Learning.