Reply to Sales of Curriculum 2.0

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here. There was a one time payment to MCPS from Pearson. That money was used to pay a few "curriculum development" staffers to craft the so-called curriculum in conjunction with Pearson staff. That initial payment was reduced, BTW, as development was underway. However, there also was a royalty payment component to the deal. Pearson would get the majority of the profit from sales, but MCPS would get a slice, too.

The comments posted so far mirror my experience. I like that there is more emphasis on a deeper understanding of math concepts, though I know many parents with students in the primary grades think the new curriculum is not moving the students quickly enough. The kids need more than rote learning. For example, knowing basic multiplication facts IS an important skill, but understanding place value and the relationship among ones, tens, and hundreds is also important as students move to higher levels.

My biggest beef with Curriculum 2.0 is that it is not really a curriculum at all. As others have noted, there are far too few resources provided, so teachers have to fill in the gaps. In ES we teach all the subjects (art, music, and PE excepted) so we have to plan lessons in Science, Social Studies, Math, and Reading. Since we are supposed to prepare for at least four reading groups, based on the students' reading levels, that's 20 weekly lessons--just for Reading. Math means 20 more. Science and Social Studies sometimes require a little less planning, because there are whole-group lessons and experiments, but even assuming just five plans for each subject, that brings the total number of lessons to be planned each week to 60. And...we get less planning time than our middle school and high school colleagues. A curriculum that doesn't meet the needs of teachers won't meet the needs of the students, no matter how hard the teachers work to fill in the gaps.

It seems to me, if Curriculum 2.0 was a superior product, schools and school districts would be lining up to buy it. The fact that, as far as I can tell, there have been virtually no sales speaks volumes about the quality of the product.[/quote]

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