Reply to RFP for new middle school ELA curriculum?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The BOE update that was sent today makes no mention of considering Study Sync, only CKLA:

Board Considers New ELA Curriculum for Grades 6–8

The Board received a presentation about the open-source Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) curriculum for Grades 6–8 English Language Arts, starting in the 2025–2026 school year. The Board had a robust discussion and they will continue the conversation at an upcoming meeting as the Board considers approval of this new curriculum.[/quote]

If the Board won't approve the new curriculum, then they will either a) have no curriculum for next year or b) have to extend Study Sync for another year and have MCPS try again next year. They are not going to do better than CKLA, which is a curriculum aligned with standards and is a natural extension of the curriculum that the BOE approved for ES a year ago and is now in place. The BOE seems to think that it is easy to recruit community members to spend dozens of hours reviewing detailed curricula and analyzing them against rubriks. It is not. I am no defender of central office, but I think in this case they came out with the best curriculum and did the best they could to recruit people to participate in the process - it's just really hard to do, given what a time commitment it is.[/quote]

That's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that the people who overwhelmingly evaluated the efficacy and cultural relevance of the curriculum are white. And that's a problem, given that white students are not the ones who are the further behind when it comes to literacy.

Why doesn't MCPS pay people to do curriculum evaluations? The reality is that the people who are in the position to give their time away for free are white people, who most often have the wealth and comfort to do so.

Furthermore, the board was pissed because they trusted MCPS staff with moving forward with CKLA for elementary level, only to receive an influx of testimony from ELD and SpEd teachers who said the curriculum was useless for them. So the board is understandably skeptical to take MCPS's word that the curriculum is in fact appropriate this time without much more proof and assurances that if they approve the curriculum, they won't be hit with a wave of complaints from teachers like they did the last time.

This is on MCPS staff.[/quote]

Yes, but who the heck is still of the opinion that any curriculum is going ton fulfill the needs of all learners, particularly Species.  A) Any curriculum takes time for teachers to get used to (hence why getting it early is helpful) and B) Depending on the Special Need there is always going to need to be customizations made.  That doesn’t mean the curriculum isn’t good.[/quote]

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