If you ask ten educators what a high-quality curriculum is, you will likely get ten different answers. But while the answers would vary, commonalities would quickly surface. One that would emerge is the use of high-quality curriculum resources (Chiefs for Change, 2020). Research affirms that quality materials significantly improve student learning and that the curriculum resources a school uses are as important as the quality of its teachers (Oregon Department of Education, 2022). When it comes to delivering an effective curriculum, in other words, schools must choose the right curriculum materials.
That's easier said than done. Recent developments in education—ranging from the adoption of new, less-textbook-adherent standards to the proliferation of lesson materials available online—have decentralized curriculum resources and given educators more autonomy in selecting them. Yet teachers don't always have adequate time or training to sift through this abundance. As instructional leaders like myself have seen firsthand, this can sometimes lead to the use of materials that are not well-aligned to standards or lesson objectives—or even grade-level expectations.
So how can schools ensure that the materials that end up in classrooms are of high quality and meet students' needs? One promising solution is a curriculum vetting committee. As the name suggests, vetting committees serve as gatekeepers of the curriculum. They ensure that what is on students' desks is relevant, meaningful, rigorous, accessible, equitable, worthwhile, and cohesive—all of which are characteristics of a high-quality curriculum (Steiner et al., 2019).
Vetting committees ensure that what is on students' desks is relevant, meaningful, rigorous, accessible, equitable, worthwhile, and cohesive.
Essentially, vetting committees are responsible for quality control. They can be formed at either the district or the school level (or both) and should comprise a range of stakeholders—teachers, instructional coaches, caregivers, students, school leaders, district leaders, and community partners. It is important for vetting committees to have wide representation so that they have input from various position levels and aren't seen as top-down or restrictive mechanisms. Committee members should also receive training in curriculum coherence and evaluation.
Vetting committees should obviously be involved in school- or district-wide curriculum selection and alignment processes, such as with textbooks. But they also have an important role in helping teachers select supplemental resources and activities for the classroom. They should develop guidelines for teachers (ideally in the form of rubrics or checklists) for choosing high-quality materials.
Vetting committees can also set up a process where teachers can submit selected materials for review. The process should be simple, yet intensive. It should include: (1) a vetting request form that teachers use to describe and evaluate the resource (based on a rubric); (2) a screening stage to determine whether the request should be considered by the full committee; (3) a full committee review process in which members evaluate the resource in accordance with agreed-upon criteria and grade-level and subject guidelines; and (4) prompt communication to the teacher on the decision that includes clear feedback and a rationale.
It is important to remember that teachers are going to want a quick turnaround when they find resources they like and plan to use. I suggest that committees meet at least bi-weekly and clearly communicate their schedule for reviews to teachers.
Attending to Curriculum Coherence
In developing criteria for reviewing materials, vetting committees should use their school improvement plan as one important lens. This can help ensure their decisions are in alignment with the school's instructional vision. For example, if a school emphasizes project-based learning in its school improvement plan, the committee should examine whether proposed resources support project-based learning.
Vetting committees must also prioritize curriculum coherence, meaning that students' "learning experiences [across grades and subjects] should build on one another in purposeful and comprehensible ways" (The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2018). Curriculum-coherence efforts must also take into account instructional gaps students may have from their learning experience during the pandemic.
More ambitiously, vetting committees can create repositories of high-quality lesson materials that teachers can draw from.
More ambitiously, vetting committees can create repositories of high-quality lesson materials that teachers can draw from. Technology has made curating and sharing resources easy. For example, I recently worked with a school team that used Google Drive to create a lesson-resources repository. We created and organized folders by subject. Each subject folder contained additional folders for each standard, with complementing activities (including remedial and enrichment activities in designated folders). Teachers had everything they needed in one place, and everything was aligned to the learning expectations. With a resource like this, teachers can spend less time looking for high-quality resources and more time planning high-quality lessons.
Teachers want to provide their students with meaningful, relevant, and rigorous learning materials that will support them in meeting grade-level expectations. Well-constructed vetting teams can help them do just that, while saving them time and even preserving their autonomy as curriculum designers.
