Analyzing Curriculum Survey Results

A critical component of successful school reform is a district’s ability to obtain, evaluate, and use data effectively. The Curriculum Survey provides a wealth of information that districts can use to begin discussions about curriculum content that is “essential” vs. “nice to know.”  (Below you can link to the English language arts, mathematics, and science survey results.)

Key Findings of the Curriculum Survey

The top ranked topics in the Curriculum Survey, whether in your classroom(s) and district or national data, are consistently content-based or skill-based. The lower-ranked topics are typically instructional strategies or techniques that teachers have historically used to develop students’ skills. For example, the ability to “apply in writing the rules and conventions of grammar, usage, punctuation, paragraphing, and spelling” is universally rated a high priority. On the other hand, the ability to “contrast the reading of a Shakespearean or other play with a live or filmed performance,” “assess several works by the same author,” and “use response journals to jot down ideas from reading literary texts” consistently rank as low priorities. These lower-ranked topics should be viewed as methodology or instructional techniques that can be used to teach skills such as the ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize information while reading or to use appropriate grammar, spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing in writing. Instead, instructional strategies, i.e., response journals, comparing novels, and reading Shakespeare have become ends in and of themselves rather than a means to an end. Staff development can show teachers how they can still embrace these bodies of work while at the same time developing students’ skill areas identified by the public.  

         Mathematics Results

The above pdf  files  will need Adobe Reader to open it.

You can download Adobe Reader for free by clicking here.

Back to Survey of Essential Skills Page

Sponsored by the International Center for Leadership in Education

info@leadered.com      518.399.2776