Alignment and Standardization - where's the line?

There's a lot of ambiguity about the difference between alignment and standardization. Much of this ambiguity is manufactured by district staff. Let's try to bring some clarity to the discussion.

Curricular Alignment is not only good, it is necessary. Standardization is not only unnecessary, it is counter-productive. We want curricular alignment - we want it bad. We must be vigilent, however, that when we open the door to curricular alignment, we do not allow Standardization to come in with it.

First, a little nomenclature.

Curriculum = the core set of knowledge and skills that, at a minimum, students are expected to learn and teachers are expected to teach for a given grade and subject. Here in Washington, for the core subjects (Reading, Writing, Math and Science), the State Standards and Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) form the minimum for the curriculum. School District Boards have the authority and responsibility for adopting curricula for their districts. They may define a curriculum more rigorous than the State Standards and Grade Level Expectations, but they may not define a curriculum which is less rigorous. If, for example, Seattle adopts the College Readiness Standards over the State Standards, that would be okay because they are more rigorous, but it would require a vote of the Board. It apparently does not require a Board vote to adopt the State Standards and GLEs.

Pedagogy = teaching method or style. The Math Wars are between two different pedagogies: Direct Instruction and Inquiry-Based. Regardless of which method is used, the students are still expected to acquire the same set of knowledge and skills (the same curriculum). Pedagogy does not dictate curriculum any more than the destination dictates the path. In Seattle Public Schools, teachers have academic freedom, which means that they are free to choose the pedagogy that works best for them and their students. The Collective Bargaining Agreement does not allow the District to dictate pedagogy. You may recall during the discussion of the adoption of the high school textbooks, the district staff repeatedly claimed that the recommended materials from Key Curriculum Press did not dictate pedagogy but could be used to support either direct instruction or inquiry-based learning. The District staff were very careful to acknowlege teacher's freedom to choose pedagogy for themselves.

Materials = textbooks and other media used to support learning. When the School Board adopted the textbooks from the Key Curriculum Press as the high school math textbooks, they were adopting materials - not a curriculum and certainly not a pedagogy. Teachers are expected to use the District-adopted materials. The District can also adopt supplementary materials. A wide variety of other materials which are not specifically adopted by the District are used as well. The District cannot compel a teacher to use any specfic material and cannot really prevent a teacher from using any specific material (so long as it isn't unduly controversial). Theoretically, I suppose it is possible for teachers to barely use the District-adopted texts and support almost all of their instruction with their own supplemental materials. It is not very practical, however.

There is a lot of sloppy talk around in which people refer to the materials as a curriculum. This is wrong and should be immediately corrected whenever it occurs regardless of who says it. You should interrupt and say "Excuse me, do you mean materials or curriculum? You said curriculum, but I believe you are talking about materials. It is confusing when the words are misused." Seriously. Practice that little speech. Always recite it verbatim. After hearing it five times from three different people folks may start to get the message. I daresay that nothing less will do. There are some who are switching these words around with the specific intent of decieving or confusing their listeners.

Curricular Alignment is the alignment of the curriculum both vertically and horizontally. Vertical alignment means that the knowledge and skills students learn this year build on the knowledge and skills they learned last year and support the acquisition of the knowledge and skills they will be expected to learn next year. Horizontal alignment has two meanings. In one meaning, it indicates that the knowledge and skills that students are learning in one subject supports the concurrent acquisition of knowledge and skills in another subject. For example, if students are learning about a period of history and the cultures of that time in Social Studies, they might also be reading texts from those cultures or that time in Language Arts. Another example would be when the skills they are learning in math are directly applicable in the science they are doing. The other type of horizontal curriculum alignment is between schools. It means that the same set of knowledge and skills taught to third grade students in School A are also being taught to third grade students in School B. More than that, it means that the academic expectations at School A and School B are the same.

There can be no question that all three of these types of curricular alignment are good and desirable.

Here in Seattle, the strongest focus of the curriculur alignment effort is this second type of horizontal alignment. The District wants desperately to be assured that all of the schools are teaching the same set of knowledge and skills to students in the same grades and subject areas and that all schools are setting and maintaining the same high academic expectations. This is the heart of the District's effort to make every school a high quality school. They know, as we all know, that differences in academic expectations makes up the most significant differences in the perception of quality from school to school. right now there is good reason to believe that student work that would get an A at some schools would only merit a B or a C at other schools. Horizontal curriculum alignment - the alignment of academic expectations for students - among the schools would go a long way to make all of our schools "high quality" schools.

This is a noble effort and we should all do whatever we can to support it. Every student (with some notable exceptions) is capable of doing grade level work and should be expected to do grade level work. The truest determinant of a quality school is whether or not they set and maintain high expectations. Then they have to support students struggling to meet those expectations.

This alignment effort will be hard and painful for a lot of students, teachers and families. There are, I am ashamed to say, some schools and classrooms in Seattle that are teaching a whole grade level or more below the State Standards. When curricular alignment comes to those schools, those students will all essentially skip a grade and be expected to do work that they are not prepared to do. There is no word yet on how the District or the schools intend to support these students as they struggle to get back on the grade level pace. There is grave question if this curricular alignment effort can succeed without these supports in place - unless the plan is to abandon those students.

Just so you know, it has long been District Policy that teachers are supposed to deliver the grade level curriculum. Just so you know, it has long been District Policy that students may not be promoted unless they have demonstrated proficiency with the grade level curriculum. So why does this work need to be done? It needs to be done because those two Policies have been totally neglected and ignored. The District's curricular alignment effort isn't anything new in their expectations. They have been asking for this for a long time. It is, instead, something new in their enforcement.

Curricular Alignment has long been the District's rule. This effort isn't so much about making the rule as it is about enforcing it. You might wonder why they have not been enforcing it to date. That is entirely due to the District's failure to manage. That failure falls directly on the teachers who have not taught the grade level curriculum, the principals who have not required the teachers to teach it (or even supervised what the teachers were teaching at all), the education directors who were not requiring the principals to do their job, or the Chief Academic Officers - from June Rimmer to Carla Santorno - who have not required the education directors to require the principals to require the teachers to teach the grade level curriculum. Dr. Goodloe-Johnson is announcing that all of that is coming to an end. She will demand that the education directors require that the principals supervise and confirm that the teachers present the grade level curriculum.

How can they enforce the teaching of grade level curriculum?

Well, they have two choices. They can do it the right way, which is hard, or they can do it the wrong way, which is easier. The right way is for principals to actually visit the classrooms and actually pay attention to what the teachers are doing and actually determine whether or not the lesson is aligned with the grade level curriculum. The easy way is for the principal to stick a head in the classroom and determine if the teacher is on a certain page in a specific book. This is easy because it doesn't require the principal to have any real knowledge of the subject matter or the curriculum. It doesn't even require the principal to have any real knowledge or understanding of education. Frankly, any idiot with a clipboard and a pacing guide could do it. It is wrong, however, because it requires every teacher to use the same materials and the same pacing. It is wrong because it puts the book in the driver's seat instead of the teacher.

Guess which method Seattle Public Schools is going to use?

Here's a funny thing: bureaucracies are all about making rules and binary systems of right/wrong and true/false. They need certainty and rigidity. They are about collapsing gradients and spectrums, eliminating discretion, forbidding creativity and disallowing decisions. Professionals, however, are specifically paid to exercise discretion, be creative and make decisions. They need range and elasticity. So when you have bureaucrats in authority over professionals, you get a really messed up situation in which your most talented people are not allowed to do what they do best.

Let's remember that the goal is to align the curriculum - the core set of knowledge and skills that students are expected to learn. We all acknowledge that teachers can deliver the curriculum and students can learn it though a variety of pedagogies and with a variety of materials. There is no need to standardize them. More than that, there is no benefit to standardizing texts except to facilitate management and enforcement. Should facilitating management and enforcement - making work less demanding for adults outside the classroom - be the determining factor here? Or should our choice be based on what is best for the students and the teachers? What is best for them would be to allow them to respond to the unique situations they find with creativity and innovation. It would be best if we treated them like the professionals they are and allowed them the freedom to exercise their discretion. Of course, the principals could still check and confirm that the teachers were delivering the curriculum, but it might not be as easy for them as it would be under the standardized regime. They couldn't do it with a clipboard, a pacing guide, and ruthless detachment. They would have to get involved and engaged.

What is the benefit of every school using the same math textbook? There is none. We are told that it facilitates professional development. Really? Why is the professional development material dependent? Why is it at that level of detail? Why isn't the professional development more broadly applicable than "Here is how to deliver lesson 3-4 of the text?" It seems to me that this sort of instruction falls into the category of giving a man a fish rather than teaching him how to fish. I'm sure that you're all familiar with the adage "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

What other reason could there be for all of the schools to use the same textbook? So students who move from school to school will find a familiar book at their new school? Really? How many students change school each year? Is it enough to drive that sort of a policy? When students arrive in a new school, in a new class, with new classmates and a new teacher, do you imagine that a familiar book will be an anchor for them? I don't think so.

And what difference does it make if a student's new school uses a different book so long as the curriculum is the same from school to school? The curriculum is not dependent on the material. The distributive property is still true and still works the same in every book.

What is the benefit of every school using the same reading books for high school language arts? There is none. The Board Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee was told that the District wanted to limit the book selection because the central staff could not write lessons for each of the hundreds of books that were being used. Why is the District's central staff writing lessons for teachers to use? They should not be doing this work. They can write some sample lessons for use in professional development, but they should not be scripting lessons for teachers as they say they are doing. We keep hearing that the reading lists will make it so that students will not have the same book assigned. First, what is the great tragedy of that? Have you never re-read a book? I re-read books all of the time and get something new from them each time I read them. Second, how big a problem is this? Are teachers in the same school assigning the same book? If this is a bad idea, then the department head or even the principal, you know, the instructional leader in the building, should resolve it. We don't need the District central staff to come swooping in and making rules. Is the problem that students who are changing schools are re-reading books? Again, I have to wonder how often this happens and if it happens enough that we have to change a fundamental relationship and impinge academic freedom to address it.

I have been told that about 25% of students change schools each year. That may be the case at some levels, but in elementary school it is more like 8% - about 1,400 out of 18,400. Twenty-five percent may sound like a lot, but I would remind you that there are a lot of things that happen to or with 25% of our students for which we don't even make accomodation, let alone make everyone change what they are doing to address the needs of the minority. For example, many more than 25% of our students fail the fourth grade math WASL (43% of them in 2008), but I have yet to see the District develop or institute any intervention for them at all. Also, there are a few schools that have most of the transfers in and out while there are lots of other schools that have almost no transfers in and out. Perhaps the problem could be addressed by standardizing the texts at the schools with a lot of transfers.

There is every reason in the world for the District to align curricula. There is, however, no legitimate reason whatsoever to standardize texts, to standardize pedagogy, or to standardize lessons. We must watch the process closely and carefully to be sure that the effort to align curricula doesn't result in standardization. The first wall has already been breached. The District has instituted standardized texts in math. This has enboldened them into believing that they can standardize texts in other disciplines. They must not only be stopped here, but pushed back on the math texts. If they push through on the materials they will press on to the pacing and the pedagogy. They have already made it clear that this is not only their goal, but their cause.

(I have made some edits to the original post, but just to clean up the meaning - not to change it).