More and more K12 teachers say they’re leveraging standards-aligned ELA and math curriculum materials. Yet, not all of them are using these instructional materials the majority of the time, even when recommended by district leaders to do so. Why? Because they’re too challenging for students.
That’s according to new research from the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank, which sought insight from more than 8,500 ELA, math and science teachers in grades K-12 across the country about whether they feel the required or recommended materials for their students are too difficult.
According to the data, that seems to be the case for some 30% of teachers who say the majority of their students struggled with these materials during the 2022-23 school year. However, nearly 60% of teachers feel that the materials were “at the right level,” and 10% said they weren’t challenging enough.
These patterns vary by grade level, too. For instance, elementary and middle school teachers (34% and 33%, respectively) were more likely than high school teachers (17%) to suggest that ELA materials were too challenging for their students. On the other hand, elementary school teachers (24%) were less likely to report that math materials were too challenging, compared to middle school (41%) and high school teachers (34%).
Teachers serving high-poverty schools were more likely to indicate that their materials are not “appropriately challenging” for their students, which the researchers argue could be offset by the adaptation of materials.
“Education leaders should work not only to keep materials in place but also to form coherent instructional systems around them,” the report reads. “However, the nature of these adaptations should be done with the intention of successfully on-ramping students toward, rather than deviating from, content provided by their curriculum materials.”
Additional findings
- Math teachers who reported that their recommended materials weren’t appropriately challenging were “significantly less likely” to use these materials for 75%-100% of their classroom instructional time.
- Teachers who used their materials for less than a year were more likely to consider them too challenging for their students.
- Teachers who received professional learning about using these materials to meet student needs were less likely to consider them too challenging for students.
“For education leaders who hope to use curriculum materials as levers for improving instruction, adopting and purchasing standards-aligned materials is only the first step,” the report declares. “Encouraging teachers to use materials with integrity remains a challenge.”
More from DA: A look at states’ ‘inexcusable’ funding cuts during the pandemic
