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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ATS parent here. The math curriculum in all of APS sucks. Sure at ATS students do better at SOLs but the bar is really low. ATS’s math curriculum is random and makes no sense. [/quote]

We're not at ATS, but the story I have heard about the APS math curriculum is that they have to teach to the Virginia Standards of Learning and there is no off the shelf curriculum that matches that exactly. That's why they are all using piecemeal materials to teach the required standards. I'm not sure if that's true, if so it seems like every single district in the state has the same problem to solve. [/quote]

That is 100% true. Seems to me like would be easier if we just. Went. Common. Core!
- APS teacher [/quote]

Since we did not, and given you have the inside view, what would you do to improve the math curriculum if you were the superintendent? The math curriculum needs to change but changing it seems to be quite complicated :/[/quote]

Great question. (I’m the PP above.) It seems difficult to believe that VA doesn’t have enough purchasing power to find a quality program that matches our standards. Or at the very least, work with other states to buy something really close. I just checked https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/common-core-states, which has some very interesting info. Really, this should be a state responsibility and not left to school districts to deal with.[/quote]

Different parts of the US do this differently. Much of New England has small local school districts, each choosing its own curriculum supplier, within broad guidelines from its state. Texas is the other extreme, where the curriculum suppliers are chosen by the state and local school systems have little flexibility about suppliers.

One state's approach is not always better than another state's approach.

Virginia is closer to the New England model.

VA recently has required that a Science of Reading curriculum be used for ELA -- and that the Lucy Calkins / Whole Language / Balanced Literacy approach must not be used. For VA, that is fairly prescriptive.

In most subjects, VA sets requirements for what to cover, both by subject and by grade, but it gives local schools latitude about their curriculum supplier. [/quote]

But how much does that even matter when the bar is set so low to begin with? I mean the SOL content expectation is way too easy in every subject and many can't or won't teach past it for a variety of reasons.[/quote]

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