Dive Brief:
- EdReports.org evaluated 20 K-8 math textbooks and found that 85% (a total of 17) did not align with the Common Core standards.
- The evaluation was conducted by 46 reviewers, half of which were current teachers, who read each individual text book and then met in groups or via video conference to compare notes and findings.
- Publishers have pushed back, saying the report is misleading and flawed. For example, Philip Uri Treisman of Agile Mind says he checked to see how long users were logged into the review site and found some spent only 10 minutes on each book.
Dive Insight:
Texts by Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt were among those reviewed, so the controversy stretches all the way to the sector's biggest publishers. Most surprising about this study is the fact that the Common Core has been portrayed as something that was supposed to help companies easily create curriculum that could be used across state lines. For the books to not match up begs many questions. So often, a new resource is promoted as "Common Core-aligned," and that information is trusted at face value. Actual reviews, however, seem to be much-needed.
The books in the report that did align to the Common Core included all of the books by Eureka Math, and McGraw-Hill's texts for grades 4-5.
It's important to note that math educators and experts have also recently expressed their belief that the Common Core math standards are flawed, so of course the next question is, perhaps, whether it's a good thing these books are not aligned.