Curriculum and Assessment

Quality curricula and assessments are essential to meeting the needs of the students we serve. Three-year-old children who are from less privileged and less affluent homes hear and use half the words of their peers. These children are dependent on their teachers and their schools to make up the difference. Teachers and schools cannot do it without quality curricula.

If PPS curricula are going to be created in-house, then the time, resources, and personnel need to be provided for the effort. It makes no sense to have a few people writing curricula, and many more calculating the results just to link it to teaching. If PPS can't deploy the resources to produce quality curricula, it should buy it. And, the District should adopt curricula based on what teachers are telling them. Don't waste our time if you have already made a deal.

Our students need a rich culturally-relevant curriculum where each teacher can build on what was taught before.

Teachers and students need:

• Curricula that is reviewed, vetted, organized, and ready well in advance of the coming school year.
• Curricula that includes a coherent and clear pathway that makes lesson planning efficient instead of a mystery.
• Curricula that is delivered, not downloaded.  
• Assessments that are aligned with the curriculum and are error-free.
• Assessments that are designed to measure student learning - not teaching.
• The District and the State to stop the over-testing of students that displaces several weeks of instructional time every year.
• Do not test in a virtual environment. The data are worthless.

It's difficult to get a school year's worth of growth when teachers and students are given inferior curricula and far less time than a school year to teach and learn.