Frustrated by curriculum resources no one can find?

96–99% — of teachers use materials they sourced themselves

In a nationally representative survey of U.S. teachers, 99% of elementary and 96% of secondary English language arts teachers reported drawing on instructional materials they developed or selected themselves, with near-identical figures in mathematics. Asked where they go to find those materials online, the most common answer was a Google search, named by 94% of elementary teachers.

What it means for your division: Materials sourced by an individual tend to stay with that individual. Roughly one in six teachers changes schools or leaves the profession in a given year, so a division that has no shared home for curriculum resources is losing a portion of its instructional work annually and rebuying it in teacher time.

Sources

• Opfer, V. D., Kaufman, J. H., & Thompson, L. E. (2016). Implementation of K–12 State Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts and Literacy. RAND Corporation. View sourceNationally representative U.S. sample of mathematics and ELA teachers, surveyed via the RAND American Teacher Panel
• Carver-Thomas, D., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute. View sourceU.S. national data; about 8% of teachers leave the profession and another 8% change schools each year

9,000+ — teachers studied across 336 schools over two years

Schools whose teachers reported higher-quality collaboration about instruction had larger student achievement gains in both mathematics and reading. Individual teachers in those schools also improved at a faster rate than comparable teachers elsewhere. The authors report these as associations, not proven cause and effect.

What it means for your division: Collaboration is not a culture problem you can solve with another meeting. It requires teachers to be able to see and reuse each other's actual lessons. If your best unit is only visible to the teacher who built it, the division gets no return on it.

Sources

• Ronfeldt, M., Farmer, S. O., McQueen, K., & Grissom, J. A. (2015). Teacher Collaboration in Instructional Teams and Student Achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 52(3), 475–514. View sourcePeer-reviewed; 9,000+ teachers in 336 Miami-Dade public schools over two years
• Goddard, R. D., Hoy, W. K., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2000). Collective Teacher Efficacy: Its Meaning, Measure, and Impact on Student Achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 479–507. View sourcePeer-reviewed; the foundational study establishing collective teacher efficacy as a school-level predictor of achievement

0.2–0.3 — measured alignment of instruction to standards, on a 0–1 scale

Using the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum, researchers have repeatedly measured how closely what teachers report teaching matches the standards they are accountable for. Across subjects and studies, those alignment indices sit below 0.5, with means around 0.2 to 0.3. The gap between the intended curriculum and the enacted curriculum is not anecdotal; it has been measured for two decades.

What it means for your division: This is why coverage cannot be assumed from a plan or a purchase order. Unless you can point to which outcomes have resources attached and which do not, you are reporting intent rather than practice.

Sources

• Polikoff, M. S., & Porter, A. C. (2014). Instructional Alignment as a Measure of Teaching Quality. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(4), 399–416. View sourcePeer-reviewed; synthesizes alignment indices across multiple large-scale Surveys of Enacted Curriculum studies
• TNTP (2018). The Opportunity Myth. TNTP. View sourceFive U.S. school systems; ~1,000 lessons observed, ~5,000 assignments and 20,000 student work samples reviewed. Students spent over 500 hours per year on work that was not grade-appropriate.