Looks like Bill Gates, having , mastered and , is now
鈥淥ur goal is to work with the field to make sure that five years from now, teachers at every level in secondary school have high-quality aligned curriculum in English, math, and science,鈥� Bill Gates said in a speech last fall, describing curriculum as 鈥渁n area where we feel like we鈥檝e underinvested.鈥�
From the point of view of a large percentage of veteran teachers, there aren鈥檛 many K-12 educational endeavors where the Gates Foundation has 鈥渦nderinvested.鈥� Pretty much everything that was once solidly in the purview of classroom teachers has now become fodder for outside reformers to tinker with: curriculum, instructional strategies, student assessments, selection of materials, and collaboration with colleagues.
Things that were in-district responsibilities, managed by local school leaders, like constructive teacher evaluation, reporting to parents, resource allocation, and hiring/induction/mentoring of new staff have also felt the weight and sway of reformy magic. You name the educational problem鈥攖here鈥檚 a nonprofit somewhere using Gates money in an attempt to solve it without, of course, actually showing up at underfunded schools and teaching kids, year after year.
Curriculum is a special case, however. Designing and delivering lessons鈥攁.k.a. curriculum and instruction鈥攁re what teachers do. Nothing is more central to being an effective teacher (and by that, I mean a teacher whose students are paying attention and learning) than control over the what and how of the work.
Once we鈥檝e totally lost those, there is no profession left. Teachers will be technicians, dispensing pre-selected knowledge using pre-determined methods and materials. Autonomy, creativity and purpose? Gone.
When Gates was investing heavily in the creation and promotion of the Common Core State (sic) Standards, the party line was that the Standards were not curricula, that teachers could use their own judgment, knowledge of students鈥� needs, content expertise and experience to craft curriculum following the Standards framework. Parents (and maybe even teachers), it was asserted, did not understand the difference between standards, which were uniform benchmarks, and curriculum, which could be custom-tailored.
Apparently, that鈥檚 no longer true. Now, the
A significant body of research suggests that choosing better curriculum鈥攐ften meaning textbooks鈥攃an lead to notable gains in student achievement.
This specious claim deserves to be prodded and dissected. If we 鈥渃hoose鈥� textbooks and materials that are specifically aligned with tests, of course scores will go up鈥攚e鈥檒l be testing kids on things they鈥檝e actually been taught.
More encouraging is that鈥攗nlike other areas of education鈥攃urriculum can likely be improved relatively cheaply, since higher-quality textbooks cost about the same as lower-quality ones.
[Researcher] Kirabo Jackson: 鈥淚t blows most interventions that we think of, like reducing class size or increasing teacher quality, out of the water.鈥�
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a shiny new silver bullet: Quality curriculum. Cheaper, neater, and quicker than trying to improve teaching or providing more individual attention to students. And vastly easier than investing in neighborhood safety, good health care, intact families and living wages.
In both linked articles, curriculum is defined almost synonymously with textbooks and materials, printed (and available for purchase) items. While some teachers still see The Textbook as the curriculum, pedagogical practice has moved away from reliance on a single text. Using a range of materials鈥攁nd, more important, creating hands-on experiences and interactions with big ideas within a discipline鈥攈elps students construct and apply knowledge.
Teachers can and do tailor materials to match individual students鈥� needs, developmental levels and interests. In fact, that鈥檚 a better definition of curriculum: a flexible set of lessons, materials, instructional techniques, and tools to illustrate/practice an important concept or skill.
鈥淭oo often [teachers] are left to scour the internet for hours to curate and tailor instructional materials for their students.鈥�
Speaking as a person who had to scour the library, films and books, pre-internet, to curate the best targeted lessons for my students, I can assure , that teachers would rather roll their own鈥攁nd share their most useful ideas with colleagues. It鈥檚 easy to do that now, given the plethora of on-line resources and learning networks. This is another initiative that trickles down to teachers.
All of which begs the question: Why does the Gates Foundation think they can create a monolithic, 鈥渜uality鈥� curriculum that will improve the lives of every secondary math, science and English teacher?
鈥淨uality鈥� is an all-purpose adjective that is used鈥攄eceptively, in education鈥攖o describe something that is deemed better than what we currently have, those functional tools of the trade that in-practice 糖心动漫vlog have honed using hard-won classroom experience. They keep using that word. But I do not think it means what they think it means.