Curriculum Alignment

You have to read deep into the Scope of Work document from Education First, but you will eventually find it, on page 9:
In this strategic curriculum mapping process, the goal will be to produce materials that will be utilized district‐wide.

I am all in favor of students across the district having equal access to high school courses that will make them college-ready.
I am all in favor of curriculum alignment - teaching the same body of knowledge and skills that a student should learn during a given course so it is the same from school to school.
I am all in favor of developing a truly standards‐based, learning‐focused, student‐centered classroom.
None of this, however, requires schools and teachers to all use the same materials. In fact, just the opposite.


If you read the RFP, you will see that it says that the District wants to:
revise SPS high school course offerings in all core content areas to align to essential skills and knowledge for college readiness

The focus here is on the skills and knowledge, not on the specific content. This is what we should be doing, aligning skills and knowledge, not content and materials.
The RFP also calls for "professional development for teachers and administrators in evaluating syllabi and lesson plans for rigorous college-oriented content" and "professional development for core content teachers in evaluating student assignments, student work and assessments for sophistication and college- readiness." If the teachers and administrators have those skills they can apply them to a diversity of materials. There is no need to standardize materials.

Nowhere in the RFP does it say that the District wants to align materials. So why is it in the proposal that staff recommends the Board accept?

Moreover, while the Scope of Work describes how they will coach teachers in differentiating instruction for students working below grade level, there is nothing about differentiating instruction for students working beyond grade level.

Think of the decision by Roosevelt High School to put all 10th grade students into a year-long version of the one semester course AP Human Geography and take away the option for 10th grade students to take AP European History. This is exactly that idea written large. They will bring up the bottom alright, but they somehow believe that in order to do it they need to chop off the top when no such move is required. All Roosevelt had to do was give students the choice of AP Human Geography or AP European History. They didn't have to take the more rigorous option off the table.

Comments

Yup, exactly right. I hope Harium speaks up at the Board meeting as he did at his last community meeting. He said this action had not been approved by the Board and certainly nothing would happen by the fall. I have no idea if that statement would necessarily change anything but just slow it down.

However, I will say that it irritates me that many high school departments act like their own little fiefdom. They don't like being told what to do? Well, parents don't like being ignored when they have concerns.
old salt said…
That's one way to close the achievement gap. Make sure no one has access to more advanced academics than anyone else.

I have observed the implementation of standard lessons in elementary & middle school. In schools with higher expectations, this has resulted in a "dumbing down" of academics. It has devastated differentiation. Teachers feel they have to sneak advanced or review materials to students who need them. And have resorted to recommending that parents get outside help for students above or below the target level, that those same teachers use to serve in their classrooms. Even kids who learn in different ways are having to seek outside help, where teachers use to be able to offer different them materials.


I sure hope this is helping some schools & kids. I don't see the standard lessons really improve the teaching by poor teachers, but it is taking a toll on what the good teachers can do.
Lynne Cohee said…
I urge parents who are concerned about the LA curriculum alignment to contact their board members before tonight's meeting. Lost in all of the (appropriate) concern about tonight's vote on the SAP is that the RFP re curriculum alignment is also on tonight's agenda for approval by the board. The RFP sets out a very specific timeline, with work on LA curriculum alignment to be complete by August 2009. I'm concerned that once this RFP is approved and a consultant hired the board will have limited ability to affect LA curriculum alignment.

There was talk from the board members at the last board meeting about holding a board work session on this later in the summer. If you look at the board calendar the board work session set for next Wednesday that was previously described as dealing solely with SAP boundary drawing is now labeled as dealing with both the SAP and curriculum alignment. It strikes me as really inappropriate for both these important issues to be dealt with in the same meeting. The Curriculum and Instruction Committee is also meeting next Monday the 22nd -- according to Harium, to discuss the overall goals and policy on curriculum alignment. But it only makes sense to me that the board set policy and goals BEFORE they approve the hiring of a consultant to align curriculum -- not after.

The district has made zero attempt to involve the public in this, and unlike math curriculum adoption, LA curriculum alignment has flown totally below the radar. Moreover, the district has yet to give any guidance on what earned autonomy means in the context of curriculum alignment, and at the last board meeting MGJ seemed to be saying that you don't need to talk about earned autonomy at all until after you align curriculum -- but I'm guessing that once you align curriculum, adopt lists of required books, buy the books, etc. there isn't going to be much room for an earned autonomy discussion.

I think the board should postpone action on the RFP until after the board work session, and I'm urging the board members to do so.
seattle citizen said…
Take a look at who Education First Consulting is here:
http://www.educationfirstconsulting.com/whoweare

Wow. Talk about your networked reformers...Gates, Broad, Washington Roundtable, New School, Stand For Children, KIPP...

The alignment lead is evidently Susan Plimenthal http://www.educationfirstconsulting.com/whoweare/collaborators/susanpimentel
seattle citizen said…
4,544 person hours for $667,800at a blended rate of approximately$147per hour

(does not include expenses).

How can I get me a chunk o' that $147 per hour action? Yowza.
seattle citizen said…
Typical hourly pay (excluding TRI) for a certified teacher: $30-35 per hour.

Why not hire some those riffed certs and classifieds to do this work: More knowledge of conditions "on the ground" and at only one quarter the cost...

But no, we need the whole reform package (see my post above, on who Education First is) so those lousy, ignorant educators don't stand in the way of progress....
Lynne Cohee said…
And we hire an outside consultant to come up with the aligned curriculum rather than looking at what our present successful programs are and using that to inform the alignment process.

Note that the RFP is funded by the Gates Foundation through the Alliance for Education. At the last board meeting the district rep presenting this acted as if board approval of the RFP shouldn't be particularly controversal, since it was revenue neutral.
owlhouse said…
Congratulations TC! Interesting timing- state recognition to "honor creative teaching and innovative thinking" while we're pushing alignment and standardization.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_imagination_award.html

"Thornton Creek Elementary is being recognized for the way the alternative elementary emphasizes learning by doing, with a particular focus on self-discovery and reflection."
Lynne C, you hit the nail on the head.

If something is cost neutral, then to staff it's A-OK. The prize to them is not great education but to get something on someone else's dime.

It sounds harsh to say it and I don't mean they don't care about education but they are so blinded by the costs that they lost sight of what they are doing.
seattle citizen said…
from Education First RFP:

"Susan Pimentel: $180 per hour"
Yum! I'll do it for $50! 

"We estimate travel and lodging per person at $73,600 for 43 trips."
Yowza! almost $2000 per "trip"! Where they goin', Paris?

"The breakdown of effort by project personnel:
ô€‚ƒ Susan Pimentel: 155 days 
ô€‚ƒ Jennifer Vranek: 15 days
ô€‚ƒ Kenyatta Graves: 47 days 
ô€‚ƒ Content experts: 225 days 
ô€‚ƒ Anand Vaishnav: 48 days 
ô€‚ƒ James Woody: 30 days 
ô€‚ƒ Optional workshops: 48 days"
Wonder if I can get hired on as a "content expert"? Bet they're paying $100, at the rates these folks are charging...

"One:Identify college‐ready standards to use as benchmarks for curriculum and course alignment.
Two:Analyze and upgrade current high school course offerings with an eye to alignment, equity and consistency so that all students will graduate college‐ready.
Three:Facilitate teams of teacher leaders to articulate curriculum materials, teacher assignments and student work to the college‐ready expectations and revised course offerings."

Hmm...don't we already have standards? And what's that about teacher assignments?
 
seattle citizen said…
Melissa,
Your post makes it sound like they're just looking for the freebie...I guess I'm more cynical, and see it as signing on to a national agenda of reform: get (or let) these Broad/Gates/KIPPsters dictate policy and action by bringing in their "experts" and "research."

To me, it looks like more than just a free curriculum alignment, it looks like a reform-the-whole-dang-thing alignment.

Look for the next steps:
Alignment for Science, History (there's a scary thought...can you say, "groupthink"?), Art (Haring out, Whistler in; Glass out, Bach in...) etc.
Then look for the whole thing to be tied neatly to performance management.

teaching is dead, long live teaching...
Lynne Cohee said…
Charlie, thank you for including the link to the Education First scope of work; I hadn't yet seen it. Notice that deep in the description of work to be completed by the end of Fall 2009 is the identification of high school courses in the five core content areas “not likely to put students on a path toward college and career readiness”, and preparation of a report recommending elimination of such courses. So an outside consultant decides which high school courses should be eliminated, with no real description of how that standard will be applied.

Also -- unless I've missed it somehow, the Excellence for All strategic plan talks about aligning math and science curriculum, but doesn't say anything about other subject areas.
seattle citizen said…
"Also -- unless I've missed it somehow, the Excellence for All strategic plan talks about aligning math and science curriculum, but doesn't say anything about other subject areas."

Not yet, Lynne, but if, as has been suggested, performance management is to be based (at least partly) on aligned curriculum, then everything else would have to be aligned, too. How would you compare the performance of an art teacher at one school with that of an art teacher at another without a common curriculum?
Okay so I now read the Education First document and what the hell is this thing? Are we truly paying money to do this? And, as Lynne C says, what's this:

"Eliminating courses from the course
 catalog altogether if they do not 
prepare students for postsecondary 
education or training, and replacing 
these with courses that do."

WHAT???

Like PE? Like the arts?

Seriously, who are these people?

This district exhausts me.
Sahila said…
We could DO something, Melissa...

protests - rallies, sit-ins... formal complaint campaigns, school boycotts, board recall motions...

At the rate this train is careening down the tracks, education in Seattle will be unrecognisable by the end of next year... the kids finishing school this year will be lucky... other kids wont actually get an education... they'll be force-fed pap - like those geese that are forcefed grain to make pate de fois gras - in our huge standardised, cloned school factories... no individuality left, no choice left... no untidy, expensive mess - parents, students, teachers - lying around creating problems for the District
seattle citizen said…
"Seriously, who are these people?"

When Butch Cassidy asks the Sundance Kid, "Who ARE these guys?" referring to the posse pursuing them, Sundance replies, "They're like their horses...somebody sure trained 'em."

The question is:
Who trained 'em, and who holds the reins?

it "addles" WV and me, both.
uxolo said…
Alliance for Education money is not "free" - all the fundraising that is done in this city (auctions, PTSA) should go back to the schools and not to support a building full of workers who need to write grants in order to pay the rent. The Alliance was not set up to affect policy or curriculum, but in order to keep themselves employed, they raise "extra" funds by writing grants that the schools themselves do not seek.
Sahila, maybe the place for the protest is at the Alliance building?
Sahila said…
uxolo -
I spent the day at AS#1's moving up ceremony... sad, happy, wistful, fun, proud of the kids and feeling good to belong to such a 'tribe'!

I got talking to a couple of other parents who like the formal complaint filing idea I've put forward... we talked about using the District's own complaint form for this, or getting thousands of postcards printed and asking families/citizens to sign and submit them to the District...

We decided that we are moving forward on that over the summer... meet somewhere (I'm cool for it to be at my house - I live in Greenwood) and work on things together, as a handful of us AS#1 parents did in formulating a response to the last attempt to close us and for our enrolment brochure mailout and flyer delivery campaigns...

It would be wonderful if we had people from many schools/communities becoming involved, either in their own capacity or as representatives of their communities.

Just imagine if we could fill dozens of mailbags with formal complaint forms, each of which requires individual attention, research and response!

Also some liked the rolling boycott idea...

Rallies are not far removed from those action steps... do you want to help organise something?... one or more of the above or something else altogether?

I dont know if the Alliance is the only place at which we should protest, but it certainly bears some attention...

One parent suggested we form a Parents Union.... the teachers have their own organisation, the District and the Board hide behind their official identity, but we parents and children have no specific body to advocate for us... the PTA and some of the other groups around dont seem to be doing an effective job of representing us, let alone lobbying for ALL our children... Sadly, ESP Vision, which has tried to be a unifying voice for teachers, students and parents, hasnt drawn wide support. Maybe its time we formed a Union or a Co-operative and began to make some demands... its really scary to me how far off track education is going, with the centralisation of power, removal of choice, supersizing, standardisation, increasing class sizes, closing of programmes and schools that dont 'fit' the mould, curricula narrowing, the idea of scripted lesson plans etc, etc...

Does anyone want to help get one or more of these direct action strategies up and running?

Let me know at: metamind_universal@yahoo.com or 206 297 7511

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

Why the Majority of the Board Needs to be Filled with New Faces

Who Is A. J. Crabill (and why should you care)?