Wanted: Curriculum evaluators

An interesting read in a recent EdWeek blog.

Ensuring Quality Curriculum for Common Standards – Curriculum Matters – Education Week.

Some have suggested that it would be best to set up an independent panel to review materials that publishers will predictably rush to claim are highly aligned to the standards. This could, the logic goes, provide states and districts with some reassurance that “aligned” materials truly embody the standards. The counterweight to that idea, however, holds that it would be difficult to populate any such panel with people who possess both sufficient expertise on the common standards and no vested political or financial interest in the subject.

Let’s see; where could we find such people? Maybe, highly accomplished classroom teachers of those subjects who have demonstrated expertise and will be responsible for actually using the curriculum materials? There are over 82,000 National Board Certified Teachers in this country; that would be a great pool from which to start looking for persons capable of evaluating curriculum materials. Or–here’s an even more radical thought–more curriculum materials actually developed by such teachers or teams of teachers.