While school districts across the company are required to teach to the federal Common Core education standards, only one in eight of the textbooks on the market meets Common Core criteria,
The Daily Beast reports, citing a new report from the nonprofit EdReports.org, a Consumer Reports-style review for instructional materials.
When the federal guidelines went into effect in 2010, textbook publishers sold new editions they represented as meeting Common Core standards, but EdReports research found that nearly all of them were "repackaged versions of earlier books" sold, at taxpayer expense, to public schools, according to the Daily Beast.
Seventeen of 20 digital and print K-8 math materials from textbook publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and others failed to meet claims that they are aligned with the Common Core,
according to Education Week, which reports that the textbooks had passed state review processes.
Only the Eureka Math curriculum published by the small Washington-based nonprofit Great Minds met the criteria at all grade levels reviewed, Education Week reported.
"In general, the results are pretty bad for all the publishers," said Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California who studies common-standards alignment. "I think people really will pay attention to this, and I think it will affect [curriculum] adoption processes going forward."
When textbooks lack required Common Core material, the onus falls on teachers to assemble, from scratch, lesson plans and materials, such as assignments and evaluations, that teach Common Core standards.
Compiling chapters from other textbooks and scouring the Internet for material take up teachers’ time, according to the Daily Beast, which notes that "the more time a teacher spends on that, the less time he or she has to plan the kind of deep, meaningful lessons that resonate with their students."
Additionally, teachers’ performance reviews are often tied to student test scores, which are based on the Common Core standards.
The controversial education standards were designed to standardize English language arts and math for K-12 students to ensure high school graduates are prepared to enter college and be competitive globally. But the initiative has drawn the ire of many on the right, particularly conservative and tea party Republicans, who argue that the federal government is trying to cede control from states to determine local education standards.
Forty-six states and the District of Columbia originally adopted Common Core standards but several states have since signed laws repealing them.
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