The county Board of Education has voted to purchase new curriculum materials for pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade English classes, despite concerns about reviews by an independent analysis website.
The new curriculum from Benchmark Education Company LLC, focuses on fluency, phonics and understanding of literature and will cost about $15 million.
All elementary schools will have the new materials in place by 2020, according to school officials.
Included in materials are texts for various reading levels and resources in Spanish to promote the school system’s two-way immersion program, which allows students to receive instruction in Spanish 50 percent of the time and the other half in English.
Also included are supports for English-language learners and professional development resources.
A search for new curriculum started last spring after a study by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy determined Montgomery County’s self-designed curriculum did not meet federal standards adopted by the state Board of Education.
At the elementary level, the Hopkins review called for more read-aloud texts that are two to three years above grade-level, a system of writing instruction and “explicit foundational skills instruction.”
At its last business meeting, the school board adopted a $12 million package for new curriculum for pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade math, middle school math and middle school language arts, bringing the total cost of new materials to about $27 million over three years.
“I don’t feel as confident on this one as I did about the math,” school board vice president Pat O’Neill said. “That was green lit on everything and … not everyone was immediately embracing this one.”
The pre-kindergarten through fifth grade language arts selection received a “moderate” rating on Ed Reports, a nonprofit that reviews kindergarten through 12th-grade instructional materials, but had the strongest judgments from references and a group that reviewed proposals for the school system.
Ed Reports says the selected materials “partially” meet the expectations of alignment with Common Core, with materials meeting “most expectations of text quality,” and “many tasks and questions grounded in evidence,” but speaking and listening activities may need to be supported with other materials. Common Core is an educational initiative that details what kindergarten through twelfth-grade students in the United States should know in language arts and math at the end of each school grade.
“The materials partially meet expectations for building knowledge within the grade level,” Ed Reports says.
In a response to Ed Reports, Benchmark argues it does meet high quality standards, which, along with positive reviews from references and reviewing the curriculum, satisfied school district staff.
“We saw evidence of those areas of building knowledge in the curriculum, and references were very excited about the academic gains they’ve made in literacy on external assessments,” said Niki Hazel, director of the school system’s department of elementary curriculum and districtwide programs.
The school board received 19 proposals for curriculum, all reviewed by school staff members, who eliminated 10 options and the remaining nine were reviewed by teachers, paraeducators, school-based instructional specialists and administrators.
“I think the students will really see themselves in this curriculum,” at-large board member Jeanette Dixon said. “I’m very impressed with all of this.”
Caitlynn Peetz can be reached at caitlynn.peetz@moco360.media
