QPS should be looking at content rich Knowledge Building Curriculum that teach students background knowledge about the world they live in.

Public comments made at the February 22, 2024 District Improvement Committee Meeting

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

I wanted to bring up concerns voiced by literacy experts in the areas of Knowledge Building and Science of Reading regarding Savaas My View Literacy and Benchmark that were chosen over Amplify CKLA to pilot this year. The information I want to share with you I have also been sharing with Board Member Petty.

First I would like to encourage all of you to check out the Curriculum Insight Project which is a collaborative effort to advance the conversation about curriculum quality and increase the transparency of the curriculum landscape. This Project is comprised of educators who are using the programs.

Their goal is “to make conversations about curriculum more substantial and tangible, in an effort to move the definition of “high quality” beyond “all green” on EdReports.”

Currently they are working on reports for:

“ Three Basal Programs: Into Reading, Benchmark Advance, and Savvas MyView. Each falls short of high-quality, and we will detail the shortcomings.”

They go on to say that “EdReports is no longer a reliable guidepost for the highest-quality curriculum.” the influential curriculum review organization, was once an excellent barometer of curriculum quality. Literacy leaders generally agreed with its reviews. But in recent years, EdReports reviews have sometimes missed the mark. Notably, EdReports has awarded positive “all-green” reviews to multiple flawed basal programs. (such as the 2 programs we are piloting this year)

Instead - QPS should be looking at content rich Knowledge Building Curriculum that teach students background knowledge about the world they live in.

In one article titled “Why Does Knowledge Matter” the author relates Knowledge and Equity by stating:

“An explicit focus on building knowledge can level the playing field for students, as not everybody comes to school with the same cultural knowledge. Explicit content-rich instruction makes fewer assumptions about what children know; it leaves less up to chance.”

The author goes on to state: “There's widespread agreement within the reading community regarding the association between knowledge and reading comprehension: the more you know, the more you understand when you read, and the more you gain from reading. Furthermore, there's a growing body of evidence suggesting that this association is causal. Thus, building knowledge, particularly through a content-rich curriculum, is expected to enhance general reading comprehension.”

The Knowledge Matters Campaign recommends 8 specific high quality curriculum that do this:  ARC CORE, BOOKWORMS, AMPLIFY CORE KNOWLEDGE, EL EDUCATION, FISHTANK ELA, LOUISIANA GUIDEBOOKS, READING RECONSIDERED, WIT & WISDOM

The same Knowledge Matters Campaign has also developed a Review Tool Designed by literacy experts for evaluating K-8 ELA curriculum. the Knowledge Matters Review Tool is a resource to determine if an ELA curriculum is truly “content-rich” and aligned to research on reading comprehension. I encourage all of you to apply this review tool to our current basal pilot programs to identify their shortcomings yourselves.

It is not too late. It is better to reverse course and select a content rich knowledge building curriculum that will level the playing field for all of our students regardless of SES while also providing science based structured literacy methods instead of investing tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on flawed balanced literacy programs masquerading as science of reading.