Where have we been?

Where are we been – in the status of 27J curriculum?

Over the past two years District 27J has worked through the Student Achievement team, district leaders, principals and many teachers from all levels to craft curriculum that reflects 40-year, life-long, transferable concepts. A scaffold to these 40-year concepts through the acquisition of skills and knowledge expressed in 40-day timeframes known as Success Criteria were developed. The creation of the 40-day Success Criteria was guided by state standards, CSAP frameworks, CBLA, College Boards, the ACT and applied Bloom’s taxonomy to their grammatical construction. The 40-day Success Criteria were aligned across grade levels in a spiraling format that utilized an Introduced, Developing, and Secured (IDS) scale for proficiency at each grade level.

In the last year the curriculum has been applied within the context of and in support of 27J’s Instruction Model which focuses on student achievement for all students without regard to label and highlights a path to student growth and closing achievement gaps through increasing levels of instructional focus, scaffolding, intervention and specifically tailored instructional programs. We have seen very encouraging and positive movement on this front in CSAP scores for Reading at 3rd grade, in NWEA RIT growth for all students in Math and Reading, and in growth in Reading for students in our Read 180 intervention.

Beginning fall of 2009, we began a focus on Classroom Formative Assessment (CFA) as an embedded instructional process and set of strategies that are integral to the delivery of the curriculum and how we will reach the achievement and growth ends of the Instructional Model. As part of the CFA focus, classrooms and instruction across 27J worked diligently to establish clarity of the learning target (a specific CFA strategy of Clarity of Target) for students and the instructional aim of the teacher. Staff development and PLC conversations had as a continual focus to discuss and reflect upon CFA strategies and their practice in instruction.

Reflecting, though many channels, on where we are today with the curriculum in 27J, it has became clear that in several areas the Success Criteria are not clear in regards to the learning targets for students and that the IDS framework is often confusing with respect to proficiency. It is often difficult to decide, based on the language of the Success Criteria and the level of proficiency indicated by IDS, what students need to learn and to what level of competency. A refining of the curriculum with the intent to clarify Success Criteria and align them with clear learning targets and grade level proficiency is needed.

The timing of this refining process aligns nicely with the State of Colorado’s process for revision of the state standards. A draft copy is circulating for public comment and finalized versions will be approved in December for Reading, Math, Science and Music. The state’s new format will include proficiency levels for each grade level providing a 40-week (end of year) proficiency level. This provides a missing link in our curriculum work where we have developed 40-year (life-long) ELTs and 40-day (unit level) Success Criteria which can now be aligned with 40-week (year-end) proficiency targets that clarify what students should have mastered within a specific academic year at specific grade levels. We will be able to end the IDS framework for proficiency and align more clearly with mastery of skills and concepts by grade level and clarify Success Criterion around specific 40-day learning targets.