California has selected nearly 30 textbooks purportedly aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, a move that will likely affect the science curriculum marketplace, but leaves lingering questions about alignment and quality in a time when educators are struggling to put the complicated standards into action.
Nearly all of the major publishers put forth a series for California鈥檚 adoption鈥攅ven Pearson, which 鈥攁s well as small, homegrown publishers, and others that can trace their origins back to National Science Foundation funding back in the 1990s.
The Golden State鈥檚 board of education gave 29 out of 34 submitted materials the green light at its meeting Thursday. Falling short were three series by TPS Publishing, one by the Carolina Biological Supply Company, and one by Knowing Science.
鈥淭he state board is committed to supporting our teachers with quality instructional materials that have been subjected to a rigorous vetting process,鈥� said board Vice President Ilene Straus in a statement. 鈥淲e are pleased with the list adopted today and look forward to seeing how these materials help our teachers.鈥�
The standards, released in 2013 and largely modeled on a 2012 NSF framework, have been adopted by 19 states and the District of Columbia. They put a much heavier emphasis on 鈥渄oing鈥� science, via the process of generating hypotheses and collecting data, than on simply memorizing concepts like electromagnetism and weather patterns.
California is also one of the first states to adopt materials purportedly aligned to the NGSS. Nationally, the state鈥檚 textbook-adoption process has long been the tail wagging the curriculum dog, and while its process is less influential than it was a few decades ago, publishers tend to aim their materials to the state鈥檚 frameworks and then tweak them for other states.
Oregon appears to be the only other state that has completed an adoption of NGSS-related materials, while . (If I鈥檓 missing a state, please holler.) Florida, though not an NGSS state, .
Vetting NGSS Science Textbooks
California materials go through a three-tiered review, by panels of outside reviewers, then by the state鈥檚 Instructional Quality Commission, and finally for approval by the state board of education. Recommendations typically don鈥檛 change drastically from level to level. This year the IQC and state board made no changes from the review panels鈥� recommendations.
Curriculum alignment can be a tricky, subjective thing to gauge, especially on standards as complex as the NGSS. California鈥檚 decision does provide some insights, most tellingly in its critiques of the five rejected book series.
For example, a 4th grade lesson in one of them, 鈥淲iggly Worm,鈥� was dinged for not using 鈥渁uthentic and meaningful鈥� real-world scenarios: 鈥淭he lesson presented is not authentic nor real world as worms do not use a life jacket or use boats,鈥� state reviewers wrote.
In another, the texts didn鈥檛 give students enough chances to generate and analyze scientific data: 鈥�69传媒 are neither given empirical evidence, nor are they given opportunity to obtain empirical evidence in the form of graphs, data, charts, etc., on which to base their argument.鈥�
Here鈥檚 another example, in which a series was dinged for not modeling a phenomenon: 鈥淲hile this segment does have students model the phases of the moon, per the science practice, it does not have them make sense of the seasons through modeling, but rather provides the explanation that the Earth has an axis and then has students show how that creates the seasons.鈥�
Nevertheless, the books California did adopt seemed to suffer from some problems. A turned up about 80 factual errors that the state asked publishers to correct.
By giving most series a thumbs-up, California has also given districts a lot of choices in materials. That offers flexibility on the one hand, but also raises questions about which ones really get the job done.
Taking the Next Step
In general, one problem with state reviews is that they often are limited to a correlational analysis of pieces of the materials to each standard, said Matt Krehbiel, the director for science at Achieve, a nonprofit that helped states craft the NGSS and now offers tools to districts to judge alignment. (Krehbiel did not participate in the Calfornia process and hasn鈥檛 extensively perused its reviews.)
鈥淏ut the big, important part of these standards is that students are making sense of phenomena and driving solutions to problems,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou could technically have a correlation to all the bits of the standards but not do that鈥攁nd it鈥檚 a pretty big lift to take materials that aren鈥檛 doing that and make it happen on your own.鈥�
Be sure to check out our special report, STEM Education: Opening Gateways to Learning and Careers
The bottom line, Krehbiel said, is that there鈥檚 no substitute for cracking the books on your own.
鈥淥ftentimes, it鈥檚 tempting to use another person鈥檚 evaluation as a proxy for digging into materials, but I think it鈥檚 really important to make sure they鈥檙e doing what you need them to do,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f it doesn鈥檛 give you the information you need, taking a set of materials someone else says is good is probably not your best choice.鈥�
California county offices of education are which picks up steam later this year, so that should help some districts make some finer-grained distinctions among the approved materials.
But time is a factor, too, observers said.
鈥淢y sense is that people have been waiting a really long time,鈥� said Sam Shaw, the science director for EdReports, an independent reviewer of curriculum. 鈥淐alifornia was one of the first to adopt the standards, and people are going to start making decisions for the 2019-2020 school year.鈥�
Here are a few other NGSS curriculum efforts worth watching. EdReports hopes to unveil its first science reviews in early 2019. And recently, OpenSciEd鈥攁nother nonprofit, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and some other philanthropies鈥攖apped Jim Ryan, the former STEM director in the San Francisco district, And there are some homegrown efforts to develop materials too, from to this
Photo: Devlin Griffin, Kollin Coleman, and Ledger Hardy test a nest they engineered with aluminum foil to see if it will support the weight of a raw egg. Such lessons illustrate basic concepts in physics, biology, genetics, and ecology in a science lab at Hutchens Elementary School in Mobile, Ala. 鈥擬eggan Haller/Keyhole Photo for Education Week-Filr
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