The problem with “finding the main idea”

Across the world, too few education policymakers have seen curriculum as a powerful lever for reforming schools. That might seem surprising. After all, “curriculum” is what we teach, and what we teach surely matters to student learning. As leading curriculum researcher Dr David Steiner of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore puts it: “What we teach isn’t some side bar issue in American education: it is American education”. 1

Yet for some years, curriculum has been overlooked as a pillar of school improvement strategy. Education reform has focused on teacher quality, and often seen curriculum as simply a tool that teachers use. Curriculum’s role as a battleground for ideologues has also led policymakers to avoid the subject. But that is beginning to change.

The research is increasingly clear that quality curriculum matters to student achievement. What’s more, there is emerging evidence to suggest that quality curriculum has a larger cumulative impact on student achievement than many common school improvement interventions – and at a lower cost.

Much recent research on the impact of curriculum on student learning has emerged from the US since the development of the Common Core State Standards. While the definition of curriculum remains contested (see our working definition overleaf), this research focuses on content-rich, standards aligned curriculum materials, especially textbooks. Several US states and districts, such as Louisiana, have begun to develop systems to identify and make available high-quality curriculum materials – and the approach seems to have paid off. The experience of these American states and districts reinforces some of Learning First’s research findings in high-performing systems such as Finland, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and British Columbia. In these places, high-quality curriculum is always part of the story.

Of course, what we teach matters. But what does this mean for educators and policymakers? How do we ensure that schools have the support they need to select or develop high-quality curriculum aligned with rigorous standards for student learning? How do we narrow the gap between the achievement standards that sit on department of education websites, and what is actually taught in classrooms? How can policymakers meaningfully engage with teachers, support and make the most of their instructional expertise, and encourage uptake of quality curriculum? What is there to learn from how other systems have designed and implemented standards and curriculum, and what are the implications for related policy levers, especially initial teacher education, ongoing teacher professional learning, and student assessments? Finally – and critically – how do we define high-quality curriculum in the first place?

The answers to these questions have profound implications for education policy in Australia, the United States, and around the world. This series of reports, – a collaboration between Learning First and Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy – draws on international research to help inform the conversation.

This report, The problem with “finding the main idea”, draws on examples from the United States to show how systemic assessments of student learning that isolate skills such as “finding the main idea” encourage teachers to place an unhelpful emphasis on the teaching of these skills. The report explains why this approach fails to improve student learning. Finally, it shows how student assessment can be both aligned with high standards and help to encourage effective teaching practice that supports student learning.

1 Steiner, 2017