It’s Not About the Text - It’s About the Learning!

Jim Riedl
Sep 29, 2008

Have you found yourself in the situation of implementing Learning-Focused, only to have the consistent and pervasive focus start to fade during text book adoption time? Achievement increases most when school leaders provide high support and high accountability to teachers on the targeted school goals. Often, during textbook adoption targeted goals become greater in number and more random, or even dropped. When a school starts losing focus, teachers become unsure of which goals are important to continue addressing.  In the case of text book adoption, teachers must make a choice - implement the text book "program", or continue to plan and implement Learning-Focused lessons. Their uncertainty becomes even greater as more emphasis is placed on training of the newly adopted text book. School leaders often fail to provide a clear focus on the role of the adopted text book with the targeted school goals.

In the current situation in education all states have made it very clear that we need to be standards driven. This very simply means that our students must learn and be able to apply at much higher levels of challenge the knowledge and skills contained in the standards. The standards are very precise about what students need, and the same knowledge and skills are measured on the state tests. It, then, is no mystery what must be taught at depth in our schools. In order to provide students with the best possible preparation, we must look first to the standards and let them drive our decisions about the priorities we establish for student learning.

In the past schools were likely to purchase a text series or program that offered the best features. These features varied widely from company to company. The choice was often dictated by the supplemental materials rather than the actual text itself. Other times it was the training offered to get the teachers ready to use the new materials. Whatever the reason, the purchased program usually served the purpose until the standards came along, and the rules changed.

As soon as the standards became the focus, and schools started to concentrate on the knowledge and skills students needed to demonstrate success on the content of the standards, they were hard pressed to find a single source for resources. Each text or program has its own strengths and weaknesses, but none seemed to provide everything students need. To deal with this issue schools began to develop new standards driven curriculum and address the concept of prioritizing the standards based on the amount of time needed, so students had the knowledge and skills to be at least proficient. When they focused on the standards first, there was a disconnect created between the ability of textbooks or purchased programs to meet the specific student needs and the level at which the students were expected to perform.

We have begun to contend with a very serious need by many schools with standards driven curriculum to find a way to select the instructional materials to support the outcomes they want for their students. Most have found that they get the best results with multiple sources that match much better to their students' needs, not to any particular text or program. This does not mean that schools will no longer use textbooks or commercial programs, but it will impact the order in which they make their choices.

In the current environment those schools having the highest rates of success typically start with the standards and develop their curriculum. This results in curriculum that does not easily match any particular commercially available program but does allow for choices of supplemental materials provided to assure students are as well prepared as possible. Decisions about instructional materials need to follow decisions about the knowledge and skills we want our students to learn and apply at higher levels of thinking.

The focus on standards has brought about many changes, but the selection of instructional materials may be one of the most significant. There has been a major shift of focus from the teaching to the learning. Textbooks and commercial programs have traditionally focused on the teaching, while the standards have transitioned to the learning. It will always be difficult to make them match when they are at counter purposes.

If you are a teacher and find yourself in a position where your school goals are becoming unclear during text book adoption, it is important to discuss with your school leader(s) what the school goals are, how the text book is going to fit in with these goals, and specifically where you should focus when determining "what" to teach. If you are an administrator, it is important to remember that achievement increases when there is high accountability and high support on just a few targeted goals. When introducing new resources, exactly what role will they play in your school? Is it necessary to train teachers on content (which is what text books provide)? And finally, always remember that text books are not standards driven - at best they are usually around 75% standards aligned.