鈥淒oomed.鈥� 鈥淏affled.鈥� 鈥淪cared.鈥� 鈥淗appy.鈥� 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care.鈥� 鈥淲e are so cooked.鈥�

Those were the reactions to the presidential election result that students scrawled on a white board Wednesday morning inside Joshua Ferguson鈥檚 11th grade government class at Ypsilanti Community High School in Michigan.

Before he knew that former President Donald Trump had won a second term, Ferguson thought he would do a lesson on disinformation in politics. Instead, he gave students room to talk. The most important piece of this lesson, he said, was for his students to feel safe and heard.

鈥淚 think that鈥檚 my job as a teacher,鈥� he said.

Educators across the country awakened Wednesday to the , then headed into school buildings where students were feeling everything from elation to shock to despair. Some had carefully scripted lesson plans at the ready. Others, like Ferguson, scrapped what they prepared and simply listened.

For civics and social studies teachers who had been monitoring the 2024 presidential election, Wednesday presented both a pedagogical challenge 鈥� and opportunity. Chalkbeat reporters fanned out to schools across the country to see how teachers approached this monumental day.

This story was reported by Caroline Bauman, Gabrielle Birkner, Hannah Dellinger, Jessie Gomez, Dale Mezzacappa, Amelia Pak-Harvey, Carly Sitrin, and Alex Zimmerman.

鈥榃hy do people keep voting for Trump?鈥�

Ahead of his 7:30 a.m. social studies class Wednesday, teacher John Winters had prepared a worksheet to spur conversation.

鈥淎s you know, [fill in the blank] has been elected as the next U.S. President,鈥� the sheet read. 鈥淧lease share your thoughts, feelings, concerns, questions, etc.鈥�

His students at Philadelphia鈥檚 Murrell Dobbins Career & Technical Education High School didn鈥檛 need much prompting.

鈥淗e IS a convicted felon and should鈥檝e never been allowed to run ever again,鈥� wrote one student.

People 鈥渄on鈥檛 want to see a girl/woman be the president,鈥� wrote another.

鈥淲hy do people keep voting for Trump? Especially people that he doesn鈥檛 even like and is racist towards?鈥� still another wrote.

The responses conveyed dismay and fear among some at the 800-student technical school, which is 89% Black and located in the city鈥檚 lowest income ZIP code.

At the end of the class, one junior held back to talk to Winters. Anxiety, even fear, was written all over his face as he struggled for words.

He asked a series of questions, like how many bills a president could pass and how an impeached president could be elected again. Winters answered but sensed there was something larger the boy wanted to know.

鈥淚 was born here, but I鈥檓 scared for my parents,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e from Haiti. It鈥檚 bad there right now.鈥�

Winters reminded him that strongly Democratic Philadelphia has been a sanctuary city, meaning it doesn鈥檛 always cooperate with the federal government in enforcing immigration law. He told the young man to clarify with his parents their status. But then, reluctantly, he added: 鈥淚 can鈥檛 lie, it鈥檚 a concerning situation.鈥�

The boy put his head down, and slowly walked to his next class.

A rightward shift, especially among boys

At The Global Learning Collaborative, a high school situated in the deep-blue Upper West Side of Manhattan, students reacted to Trump鈥檚 victory with a mix of fear, ambivalence 鈥� and support.

More than 70% of the school鈥檚 students are Latino, and many expressed alarm over Trump鈥檚 anti-immigrant rhetoric. But there was still a sizable number of students who supported the Republican candidate during a mock election held during a Wednesday morning assembly: 136 students voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 70 supported Trump.

Junior Alix Torres said she has undocumented relatives and worries about his promise to .

鈥淚 woke up kind of angry this morning,鈥� Torres said, noting that she helped persuade some family members to vote for Harris. 鈥淚 hope he hears the public and chooses to not go through with that. We built this country.鈥�

Others at The Global Learning Collaborative said they supported Trump or didn鈥檛 have a firm opinion of him; nearly all were under 10 years old during his first presidency.

Senior Sara Otero, who is 18, voted for the first time on Tuesday, casting a ballot for the former president. A devout Christian, Otero said she believed Trump would preserve religious liberty, though she hadn鈥檛 followed the election closely.

鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 as educated as I wish I was on the whole thing,鈥� she said.

Harris decisively won New York City, but . Civics teacher Martin Gloster said he has seen a rightward shift in political attitudes in his classroom.

鈥淚 think teenage boys are really attracted to that strongman presence,鈥� he said.

Gloster said he has struggled with teaching contemporary politics, including the presidential debate in which Trump Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. In a class that discussed the debate, one student had faced an arduous journey emigrating from Guatemala, while others were more sympathetic to Trump.

鈥淚t鈥檚 difficult because obviously I play it down the middle 鈥� Trump is just a different thing,鈥� Gloster said. 鈥淚鈥檓 learning on the fly. I don鈥檛 have all the answers.鈥�

Taking lessons from Gore鈥檚 2000 concession speech

When Reid Stuart arrived for his first class on Wednesday, he had three goals for students: Give space to process this huge political moment, impart tools to 鈥� and watch Al Gore鈥檚 concession speech from 2000.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredible speech, by a Tennessean, after a tense moment that calls for unity,鈥� said Stuart, who teaches at Crosstown High School, a diverse public charter school in Memphis, Tennessee. 鈥淚t feels relevant.鈥�

His students in AP Human Geography settled into class, some joking with each other about the election and others speaking somberly.

Before watching , Stuart asked: What did his students expect from a conceding presidential candidate?

鈥淭o show respect to the other candidate.鈥� 鈥淭o show respect for the system.鈥� 鈥淭o actually concede,鈥� students chimed in.

Stuart then asked, 鈥淚f you are Al Gore, how are you feeling?鈥�

鈥淐heated.鈥� 鈥淢ad.鈥� 鈥淯naccepting of loss.鈥� 鈥淏itter.鈥�

Gore, a Democrat, gave his speech more than a month after the 2000 Election Day and after .

Stuart asked his students what they thought of Gore鈥檚 delivery and message.

鈥淚 think he was being sarcastic,鈥� said one student. 鈥淟ike you could tell he didn鈥檛 really believe what he was saying, and felt like he should have won, but he still called for unity and respect.鈥�

As other students in the room nodded in agreement, Stuart said: 鈥淭his is a hallmark of a free and fair election, that the person who lost, can get up there and offer a unifying message, even if he is bitter. Right?鈥�

He noted that later Wednesday. 鈥淚 encourage you to watch it,鈥� he told students. 鈥淪ee if she has the same message of unification and moving forward, even though you can guarantee she is feeling deeply about the loss.鈥�

An election that turned on grocery prices and utility bills

Philadelphia social studies teacher Charlie McGeehan prepared for every election outcome 鈥� but, he admitted to his students Wednesday morning, 鈥渢his is not what I expected.鈥�

When he went to bed Tuesday night before midnight, McGeehan had anticipated explaining to the juniors and seniors in his classes about how long vote counting can take. About how we might not know the outcome of the election for several days. About the role deep-blue Philadelphia would play in deciding the election.

By the time he woke on Wednesday, that plan was moot. So, he figured, let鈥檚 just give the students 鈥� many of whom had spent long hours working the polls the day prior 鈥� space to decompress.

Together, they combed through the election results guided by students鈥� questions like 鈥淗ow was the polling yesterday so surprising?鈥� 鈥淲hich state did the race ultimately come down to?鈥� and 鈥淒oes Kamala Harris have any path to winning at all?鈥�

To that last question, McGeehan was straightforward: 鈥淣o, she doesn鈥檛.鈥�

Many of McGeehan鈥檚 students at the Academy at Palumbo are first- or second-generation Americans or immigrants. On notecards, students laid out their more personal fears, ones they didn鈥檛 necessarily want to share with the class.

鈥淎s a woman and a child of an immigrant, I鈥檓 honestly scared鈥� read one. 鈥淚 saw a post saying how Trump pledged to launch mass deportation鈥� which makes me feel like not researching more because of how much more sick stuff I might read,鈥� said another.

One said 鈥淚 feel great because Trump鈥檚 [positions] align with what I want. Especially with the issues of censorship, grocery prices, and utility bills.鈥�

鈥楰ind of a very depressing day鈥�

Nehemiah Legrand tried to eat dinner Tuesday but couldn鈥檛 finish. She was glued to her phone. She was up until 3 a.m.

The 13-year-old student at Enlace Academy, a pre-K-8 school in the International Marketplace area of Indianapolis, is an American citizen by birth whose parents are legally living in the country. The family fled Haiti after her older brother was kidnapped in 2020 amid the country鈥檚 political turmoil.

Still, Trump鈥檚 campaign rhetoric around immigration scared Nehemiah 鈥� and made her fear that her family would be deported.

鈥淚 just feel like today 鈥� it doesn鈥檛 feel normal,鈥� she said, sitting in the school鈥檚 hallway on Wednesday, looking out the window at the rain. 鈥淧eople are not talkative or none of that. It鈥檚 very, very strange. It鈥檚 kind of a very depressing day. Because everyone just doesn鈥檛 know what鈥檚 going to happen next, and you can tell everyone is stressed.鈥�

The presidential election has over her and her classmates at the school, where many students come from Latin America and Haiti. At this school, students have to grow up fast. Many carry trauma from their immigration to the United States, said lead social worker Hailey Butchart.

Now, students like Nehemiah are preparing for what the next four years with Trump 鈥� whose platform includes deploying 鈥渢he largest deportation operation in American history鈥� 鈥� will mean for them.

鈥淎 lot of the students I speak with have had a family member that has been deported, and they live with that fear as well,鈥� Butchart said.

The power of social media in elections

On the morning after Election Day, Zy鈥橝sia Weathers rolled over in bed to grab her phone on a nearby nightstand and scrolled through TikTok.

But instead of seeing videos of makeup reviews or the latest trends, Zy鈥橝sia鈥檚 feed was filled with women and girls crying about the outcome of Tuesday鈥檚 election and the potential impact on female reproductive rights.

鈥淧eople were even saying, like, very vague things, like, just thinking the worst of the worst,鈥� added Zy鈥橝sia, 17, a senior at KIPP Newark Collegiate Academy.

Throughout the school day Wednesday, Zy鈥橝sia and her peers talked about other videos they saw, like people celebrating former president Donald Trump鈥檚 reelection and others questioning what his victory would mean for the nation.

Zy鈥橝sia is also the president of her school鈥檚 Student Government Association, and on Wednesday, the group met to discuss the presidential outcomes. Yanibel Feliz, the advisor of the group, walked students through an exercise to discuss the election process, the outcome, and the effect of social media.

Some students said they were shocked about Trump鈥檚 victory because they had seen much support for Harris on social media.

鈥淪ometimes, social media might paint a picture of how elections will go,鈥� said Trinity Douglas, a junior at the school, during class. 鈥淏ut it has a big effect on our generation.鈥�

鈥業鈥檓 afraid what will happen to my family鈥�

The icebreaker in Joel Snyder鈥檚 government classes on Wednesday was to respond to the prompt: 鈥淚 am feeling 鈥� because 鈥︹��

The responses were wide-ranging and included students who were enthusiastic about the election outcome and those who were disappointed the U.S. would not, after all, elect a woman as president.

In the few minutes they were given, students took pencil to paper and wrote that they were 鈥渟hocked鈥� to hear how well Trump did with Latinos, 鈥渇urious鈥� at what they saw as sexism in the results, and 鈥渃oncerned鈥� that America had once again elected a man whose flaws and felony convictions are, by now, well known.

Some answers hit closer to home. 鈥淚 am feeling uneasy,鈥� one student wrote, 鈥渂ecause I鈥檓 afraid what will happen to my family who are undocumented.鈥�

Standing at the front of his class at 脕nimo Pat Brown Charter High School in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood of South Los Angeles, the teacher reminded his students that whether or not they are U.S. citizens, they have 鈥渢he duty to be the protectors of democracy and of each other.鈥� Snyder teaches about 140 students across five government classes, including one AP course. Of the roughly 600 students enrolled at 脕nimo Pat Brown, almost all of them are Hispanic 鈥� their families hailing from Mexico, Guatemala, and elsewhere in Latin America.

Snyder also asked his students to write down one issue that they care about and how they think Trump鈥檚 election might impact it. The students chose abortion rights, the economy, constitutional norms, and, again and again, immigration. They shared their fears of mass deportations and stories of family members who had waited years for green cards they may never get.

鈥淢y main concern is how, even despite being a citizen, I still won鈥檛 be protected because my parents are immigrants,鈥� Natalie, 17, a student in Snyder鈥檚 AP U.S. Government and Politics class, told Chalkbeat.

This was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

But overall, results have been modest. In math, researchers have found when districts adopted HQIM materials. Evidence of major outcomes in ELA are also lacking: and , which lead the nation in , show mixed NAEP results. Why aren’t there stronger positive outcomes? Because most teachers simply don’t use the new materials for most instructional purposes. They might pull a quiz or a homework assignment from the curriculum, but when it comes to daily instruction, they water it down, mix it with stuff from the internet or skim over material by giving students few opportunities to grapple with the rigorous content.

Telling teachers to just do it 鈥� teach the darn curriculum 鈥� isn鈥檛 working. To address the situation, school districts are spending some $18,000 per teacher per year on professional learning, an increasing portion of which goes to curriculum-related instruction. The plausible idea is that if teachers are given adequate support to understand the new materials and present them effectively, resistance to using them will diminish. 

There isn’t much strong research on the impact of this type of professional learning. One shows a very modest effect, while a review that analyzed previous research found 鈥�small to moderate positive impacts.鈥� This is because at the core of resistance is a mindset: Teachers don鈥檛 believe their students can manage the rigor of grade-level HQIM instruction 鈥� thus, the avoidance and watering down. The general response (especially from the publishers of these materials) has been frustration. Perhaps teachers don鈥檛 trust themselves to handle the material, or perhaps they don鈥檛 like the curriculum because they haven鈥檛 tried it (to paraphrase a British from my youth) 鈥� or they just need more curriculum-integrated professional learning. 

While there is surely some truth to these responses, I think they miss a key point 鈥� teachers are often behaving rationally. In 2022, 26% of eighth-graders performed at or above proficient on the NAEP in math, and 31% in ELA. While NAEP standards are more demanding than those in most states, what this means (conservatively) is that more than half of the students in an average American public school classroom lack grade-level skills and content knowledge. In the inner cities and many rural communities, that proportion is much higher: In the economically troubled city of Baltimore, where I live, the proficiency rate for eighth graders on the math NAEP in 2022 was . 

If you were a teacher faced with 25 13-year-olds whose knowledge of math and ELA ranged from one to three years below grade level, would you readily teach materials that assumed grade-level competence? 

School districts in Baltimore and across the country aren鈥檛 blind to this reality. For many years, they have tried to help underperforming students through remedial education that attempts to teach what wasn鈥檛 mastered in previous years. This effort has had various labels 鈥� for example, MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) or RTI (Response to Intervention). It usually involves grouping students into what is called Tier 2 or Tier 3 and then giving them various doses of remediation. There is no rigorous research that suggests this effort has succeeded at scale. 

More recently, this approach has been adopted for the use of HQIM in the classroom (also called Tier 1 instruction). The idea, reasonable on its face, is that weaker students should be given extra time, usually through pulling them out of arts or even social studies courses, to master the materials. 

Here is a quick sketch of how the approach works 鈥� in theory. Students take diagnostic assessments a week or two before the start of a new HQIM unit. In math, these test students鈥� mastery of the prerequisite skills that will make effective learning in the forthcoming unit possible. In ELA, the assessment will test for key vocabulary and background knowledge without which the forthcoming text(s) will be inaccessible. Then, the results are given to the Tier 2 teacher, who focuses on preparing the students with 鈥渏ust in time knowledge鈥� 鈥� what students must know to successfully understand their upcoming Tier 1 HQIM unit.

But in practice, these efforts underdeliver. And that鈥檚 not simply due to the challenges of organizing the student groupings and the instructional differentiation; it’s because there simply aren’t effective assessments to do the job. A state test administered the previous year is largely useless (and most teachers are ignorant of how their students performed). Nationally normed tests such as i-Ready and MAP aren鈥檛 designed for educators to be able to translate results into curriculum content. A previous end-of-unit assessment (if the teacher even gave it) might work if the new skills and knowledge in each new curriculum build directly on what students had successfully learned in the previous unit. However, ELA units often introduce completely new subjects, and math curricula are full of skills that . The Tier 2 teacher is left trying to guess what to teach 鈥� and too often uses materials that aren鈥檛 even from the same curriculum as the Tier 1 instructor is using. 

In short, there is too little connection between what students are being taught in Tier 2 instruction and what they need to know to be ready for Tier 1 HQIM material. Teachers and schools are rightly trying their best in adverse circumstances: In Houston, students are tested during their Tier 1 classes and then given appropriate Tier 2 teaching for the second part of the 90 minutes, an approach requiring extremely tight planning and many hours pre-analyzing every unit to design the tests and instruction. Superbly led districts and schools (regular and charter) create time for such analyses. But in most districts, Tier 1 instructors are given some exposure to a curriculum鈥檚 content and then told to differentiate their teaching on the fly, remediating while simultaneously teaching the grade-level material. 

What teachers and students need is urgent action from the curriculum publishers (and AI-based providers such as and ). They should be providing short, focused pre-unit diagnostics that are integrated with the most-used curriculum. These short quizzes will pinpoint the material Tier 2 instructors need to highlight. The bottom line: If Tier 2 classes across the United States were focused on teaching what students most need to know to access their forthcoming Tier 1 curriculum unit, Tier 1 teachers would rightly have more confidence that their students could manage Tier 1 HQIM. Instead of watering down that material, they could teach it, thus fulfilling the considerable promise of the new high-quality curriculum.

This won鈥檛 be a panacea. There’s no way to ensure that a child who is two years behind will be ready for next week鈥檚 grade-level instruction 鈥� a problem that goes back to the nation’s pre-K universe, with its and . But it is possible to give that child a chance. Currently, Tier 2 teachers are flying blind 鈥� wasting hundreds of instructional hours, unable to provide students with any chance of benefiting from HQIM. And Tier 1 instructors? Many will go on watering down those materials, knowing how few students are ready to learn rigorous, grade-level content.

Several years ago, fresh from my South Bronx fifth-grade classroom and still feeling my way through the unfamiliar world of public policy and education reform, I found myself in a New York City ballroom where Michelle Rhee was receiving the Manhattan Institute鈥檚 Urban Innovator Award. She was, at that time and by a considerable margin, the most prominent and celebrated figure of the education reform movement in the United States, which was itself at the zenith of its power, prestige, and moral authority. As then chancellor of Washington, DC, schools, Rhee instituted a series of high-profile reforms, including closing chronically failing schools and tying teacher pay to performance. A few months earlier, she had been on the cover of Time magazine scowling and wielding a broom鈥攁 symbol of her determination to sweep underperforming teachers out of the city鈥檚 classrooms.

Rhee had recently announced the launch of a new initiative, Students First, and a goal to raise $1 billion to support political candidates to advocate for 鈥渞eal change,鈥� which she defined as putting students鈥� needs before those of adult interests such as teachers鈥� unions or wasteful bureaucracies like the one she鈥檇 been waging war upon in the nation鈥檚 capital. From my vantage point as a classroom teacher and curriculum reform advocate, focusing attention, energy, and resources on political campaigns and legislative races seemed even less likely to improve student outcomes than the work she鈥檇 been doing running Washington鈥檚 school system.

After the event, I had the opportunity to talk with Rhee about her reform work as chancellor and the work she was now envisioning in political advocacy. I wondered aloud whether it made sense to reach conclusions about the effectiveness of individual teachers who are poorly trained, have little say over their curriculum, and as often as not have no curriculum at all. As she moved from leading a major metropolitan school district to a position of influence over state-level education decisions, perhaps she might keep curriculum in mind? 鈥淭he last thing we鈥檙e going to do,鈥� she replied with a chuckle, 鈥渋s get wrapped up in curriculum battles.鈥�

I was taken aback by the dismissal. Readers may recall that Rhee was the embodiment of an ed reform movement that embraced a confrontational, even pugilistic style. In her talk that afternoon before a number of prominent figures in education and policymaking, she鈥檇 urged her listeners not to shrink from conflict on behalf of children, yet she herself had no stomach for a debate over what America鈥檚 children should learn in school.

Go Deeper With the Author: Robert Pondiscio talk with an expert panel about curriculum reform, and why it could be the answer to some of education鈥檚 long-standing questions.聽

More than a decade later, the encounter still stands out in my memory. Confronting the teachers鈥� unions on pay and tenure is worth a fight. So, too, is flipping a state legislative seat. Yet it was too heavy a lift to say what third-graders should know about American history, geography, or science, or whether they needed to know anything at all.

In fairness, this mindset was not unique to Rhee, who was merely the most vocal and visible representative of a theory of change common to education reformers of the time, which saw the external structures of education and the exercise of political power as the most important levers for improving student outcomes. The logic of this brand of reform assumed, at least tacitly, that schools and teachers know what to do, have the capacity for improvement, and need mostly to be properly incentivized鈥攐r threatened鈥攊n order to be made to do it. The cri de coeur that launched the modern education reform movement, the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, appropriately sounded an alarm over school curricula that 鈥渉ave been homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they no longer have a central purpose鈥� and have been replaced with 鈥渁 cafeteria style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses.鈥� But concern over the substance of K鈥�12 education in the United States had become an afterthought among the 鈥渟tructural reform鈥� leaders like Rhee who came to prominence a generation later.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is no longer controversial to say that the structural reform theory of change has underperformed, its assumptions found wanting. To be sure, while twelfth-grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have not budged in two generations, there was evidence prior to the COVID-19 pandemic of gains in the earlier years of the twenty-first century, particularly in fourth-grade reading and math. Nor has the education reform movement been without significant accomplishments. Urban charter schools, the movement鈥檚 clearest victory, have transformed urban education for low-income students of color in many major US cities, creating unprecedented opportunities for students and bringing competitive pressure to bear on local school districts. Graduates of schools founded and run by charter management networks continue to graduate from high school and attend college at much higher rates than they would have had those schools never existed. But the fact remains that if the classic ed reform playbook of higher academic standards, high-stakes testing, and muscular accountability was going to bear fruit, drive watershed improvement in student outcomes, or appreciably narrow racial achievement gaps, we鈥檇 have clear evidence of it by now.

Worse, as the education reform movement evolved from the do-gooder earnestness of its early days to a punitive technocratic regime, it overspent its moral capital and contributed to unmistakable reform fatigue. This led a significant number of public education stakeholders 鈥� parents, teachers, and taxpayers鈥攖o regard its policies and practices with skepticism, even cynicism, particularly as education spending continued to rise while student achievement stagnated and even declined.

The lingering effects of COVID-related disruptions have shifted much of the attention in US education away from long-running debates over testing and accountability to more urgent discussions about learning loss, student mental health issues, and declining school attendance. It seems unlikely that the bipartisan ed reform coalition whose agenda dominated America鈥檚 K鈥�12 agenda in the first decades of the twenty-first century will be returning to prominence anytime soon, if ever. The appetite for reform has waned considerably. The movement is what advertising and marketing professionals call a tainted brand. Indeed, ed reform 鈥渋s now considered to be a loaded term that is no longer spoken in polite company,鈥� former Massachusetts secretary of education James Peyser recently observed, 鈥渨ithout risking a heated argument or losing the friendship of former allies.鈥�

Education reform’s next frontier: Instructional reform

A simple fact about education in the United States trumps all others, yet has been largely overlooked in the education reform era and contributed to its disappointing underperformance: it takes nearly four million women and men to staff America鈥檚 K鈥�12 classrooms. A number that large, by definition, means that teachers will be people of average abilities and sentience鈥攏ot saints, not superstars, and, more pertinently, not the cognitive elite, who do not exist in sufficient numbers to staff more than a fraction of America鈥檚 classrooms. At the same time, it is not an overstatement to say that the ever-increasing demands placed on the average teacher make the job nearly impossible to do well, consistently, or sustainably. The reluctance even to cite, let alone address, this mismatch of expectations and abilities contributes to the mediocre performance of education in the United States, which has not changed significantly or satisfactorily since A Nation at Risk warned that 鈥渢he educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.鈥�

If teacher capacity is unlikely to change, then what must change is the teacher鈥檚 job. If the education reform movement is to regain its momentum and moral authority, becoming not merely a disruptive force but an effective one, it must reinvent itself as a practice-based movement that is clear-eyed and candid about human capital and system capacity, committed not to transforming the teacher workforce but to making teaching doable by the existing workforce and those likely to enter the profession in the future.

At the same time, candor requires acknowledging that this transformation can鈥檛 be speedily or satisfactorily addressed, even if taken up with urgency. Education policy is a weak lever to change classroom practice. Enduring change requires shifts in the culture of teaching, which is notoriously slow to evolve, resistant to change, and skeptical鈥攅ven cynical鈥攁bout reform. For a 2017 study published by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, Wartburg College professor Richard Snyder interviewed a series of teachers with more than twenty years in the field to understand their perspectives on reforms and change. One teacher, who was aggravated with changes to class schedules, often ignored new directives from administrators. 鈥淚n fact, Mr. Booker鈥攁 social studies teacher with over 30 years of experience鈥攁cknowledged giving 鈥榣ip service鈥� to numerous initiatives, then returning to his own classroom intent on accomplishing intellectual discourse through interactive lecture.鈥� Other teachers criticized increased top-down control, whether it be from Common Core State Standards or area education agency (AEA) consultants. Concerned about her loss of autonomy, Mrs. Rittmeyer stated:

So now the AEA is teaching us how to teach because we don鈥檛 know how to teach kids how to read, and learn letters and sounds, things like that . . . never have darkened the doors of our classroom, but they can meet with us once a week and tell us what to do. That鈥檚 very frustrating.

The cyclical change and rebranding of old ideas common to education reform frustrated teachers the most. A high school teacher told Snyder, 鈥淚鈥檝e become more frustrated, especially when I started hearing things I鈥檝e heard before and [being] spun as new. . . . I don鈥檛 like the way we, we put brand new wrappers on things . . . and I sit through a pile of meetings and hear the same things I heard 15 years ago.鈥�

There is one arrow in the policymaker鈥檚 quiver that remains mostly unutilized and can be used to effect positive change: curriculum reform. The adoption and implementation of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and making curriculum and its implementation central to school improvement efforts contribute to working conditions that allow teachers to focus on lesson delivery鈥攏ot lesson design鈥攚hile lending greater consistency to the student experience regardless of school setting and raising outcomes at something closer to scale. A systematic 2017 review of the effects of curricular choices in K鈥�12 education conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education concluded that curriculum is 鈥渁 critical factor in student academic success鈥� and that a 鈥渃omprehensive, content-rich curriculum is a common feature of academically high-performing countries.” However, to a degree largely lost upon policymakers and other stakeholders in education, the curricula in most US schools and districts are not 鈥渃omprehensive and content-rich鈥� at all, but teacher driven, often improvisational and incoherent.

We have known for some time (or at least have had ample reason for curiosity and further study) that curriculum could be a richer vein of ore to mine than many of the more commonly pulled 鈥渟tructural鈥� reform levers. In 2012, Grover J. 鈥淩uss鈥� Whitehurst and Matthew M. Chingos noted in a widely read Brookings Institution paper that the effect size of choosing a better second-grade math curriculum was larger than replacing a 50th-percentile teacher with a 75th-percentile teacher. Clearly, it is easier to give children access to a strong curriculum than it is to dramatically increase the effectiveness of their teachers. At the same time, Whitehurst and Chingos lamented that 鈥渓ittle research exists on the effectiveness of most instructional materials, and very little systematic information has been collected on which materials are being used in which schools.鈥�

It is hard to account for or excuse entirely the long-standing indifference to curriculum in education reform, which has long seemed to assume that differences in student outcomes are attributable mostly to who the teacher is, not what is being taught. To be sure, researchers have amply demonstrated that some teachers are more effective than others. But identifying what makes them so has proven elusive. No consistent or clear relationship has been found, for example, between teacher credentialing or certification exams and classroom effectiveness. However, education reformers of the late 1990s and early 2000s were enamored with 鈥渁lternative certification鈥� routes and high-profile initiatives like Teach for America to lure the 鈥渂est and the brightest鈥� graduates of elite universities to spend at least a few years in the classroom. Results have been mixed. But even if they were stellar, more than 80 percent of full-time teachers still enter the classroom via traditional training and certification routes, limiting this strategy鈥檚 potential for transformational change.17 Neither is it likely that simply paying teachers more will make the profession as attractive to the best and brightest as technology, engineering, medicine, or law.

鈥淲hat we teach isn鈥檛 some sidebar issue in American education: it is American education,鈥� David Steiner, executive director of the Institute for Education Policy at Johns Hopkins, has noted. 鈥淭he track record of top-performing countries, early evidence of positive effects from the faithful implementation of high-quality curricula here in the United States, and the persistent evidence that our classrooms are underchallenging our students at every level compel us to put the materials that we use to teach at the core of serious education reform.鈥� If the assumption is that curriculum either is settled or doesn鈥檛 matter to student outcomes, it is a demonstrably incorrect assumption. A 2016 study by RAND Corporation revealed that virtually every English language arts (ELA) teacher in America 鈥� 99 percent of elementary teachers; 96 percent of secondary school teachers鈥攔outinely use 鈥渕aterials they created or selected themselves.鈥� Among elementary school teachers, 94 percent reported turning to Google to find ELA lesson plans and instructional materials; 87 percent searched Pinterest. The numbers are virtually the same for math. Survey data by the research firm MDR found that teachers spend seven hours per week searching for instructional resources and another five hours per week creating their own classroom materials. The open question is whether this is an effective use of teacher time, and what might they use those hours for instead.

In theory, curating, customizing, or creating lessons from scratch allows teachers to tailor their instruction to meet the specific needs, interests, and abilities of their students. By designing their own curriculum, either in whole or in part, teachers can ostensibly adapt and differentiate class content, instructional methods, and assessments, resulting in a more personalized and engaging learning experience for students. If it could be demonstrated that the vast number of hours teachers spent doing curriculum design work paid dividends in raising student achievement, then no further comment would be necessary. The available evidence does not suggest a richer academic experience for students, however.

A 2019 study authored by University of Southern California Associate Professor Morgan Polikoff and education consultant Jennifer Dean explored the quality of supplemental materials teachers downloaded from popular websites, revealing 鈥渁 major mismatch between what content experts think educators should (and shouldn鈥檛) use in classrooms and what teachers, hungry for instructional resources, are choosing to download.” Polikoff and Dean rated most of the materials teachers chose themselves from popular websites such as Share My Lesson and Teachers Pay Teachers as 鈥渕ediocre鈥� or 鈥減robably not worth using.鈥� Similarly, a 2018 report from the New Teacher Project (TNTP) based on one thousand observations found that students 鈥渟pent more than 500 hours per school year on assignments that weren鈥檛 appropriate for their grade and with instruction that didn鈥檛 ask enough of them鈥攖he equivalent of six months of wasted class time in each core subject.鈥� Disadvantaged students were the hardest hit. 鈥淐lassrooms that served predominantly students from higher income backgrounds spent twice as much time on grade-appropriate assignments and five times as much time with strong instruction, compared to classrooms with predominantly students from low-income backgrounds,鈥� the study found.

A more comprehensive and rigorous study, conducted by Thomas J. Kane of Harvard University and David Blazar of the University of Maryland, examined data on student achievement and math textbook adoptions in six states over the course of three school years and found 鈥渓ittle evidence of differences in average math achievement growth in schools using different elementary math curricula.鈥� However, the pair also reported that while the vast majority of teachers used their school鈥檚 official curriculum in more than half of their lessons, few used it exclusively. Even more pertinently鈥攑erhaps ominously鈥攖hey found only 鈥渕odest鈥� amounts of teacher professional development on the adopted textbooks and curriculum.

鈥淪ome may interpret our findings as implying that curriculum choice does not matter. We believe that would be an overstatement,鈥� wrote Kane, Blazar, and their colleagues. 鈥淚t is true that, at current levels of classroom implementation, we do not see that schools using different textbooks or curriculum materials differed in terms of average student achievement growth on the CCSSaligned assessments. Yet, it is possible that, with greater support for classroom implementation, the advantages of specific curricula would emerge and we would see larger differences.”

In a commentary on the report, Kane and David Steiner compared teachers鈥� use of newly adopted curricula to a smartphone with 鈥渕ysterious functions鈥� that most consumers never use, preferring instead to dabble with the unfamiliar device. 鈥淲ith the new curricula, we have handed teachers a tool much more complicated than any smartphone, one that holds great promise but requires complex behavior changes. And we have largely left them to figure it out on their own,鈥� the pair observed. 鈥淭he average teacher received only 1.1 days of professional development devoted to their curriculum during the 2016鈥�17 school year and 3.4 days when including prior years.鈥� Rather than conclude that curriculum has no effect on student outcomes, the pair wisely prescribed a 鈥渃all to action,鈥� stating the following:

Education policymakers can no longer simply exhort schools and districts to implement curricula more thoroughly. We need to provide clearer guidance on an effective transition to more-rigorous curricula. States, districts, and the national philanthropies who have been supporting the better materials should test different packages of supports鈥攚ith different combinations of professional development for teachers, training for principals on what to look for during classroom observations, classroom coaching, videotaped practice sessions with teachers鈥攁nd identify the suite of supports necessary to generate closer adherence to the curricula and to boost student achievement.”

In sum, spending hours on customizing curriculum or creating units and lessons from scratch is burdensome, results in lessons of low rigor and quality, and is almost certainly a less valuable use of teacher time than studying student work, giving feedback, developing subject matter expertise, and building relationships with students and their families. The bespoke nature of instructional planning is a standard feature of a teacher鈥檚 job in the United States but one that lacks evidence of efficacy.

Change does not have to come in the form of a centralized, top-down curriculum imposed by distant state governments, but as the guarantor of public education, states have a clear interest in ensuring that the best curricula are adopted and implemented. In the early 2010s, under the tenure of then superintendent of education John White, the state of Louisiana pioneered an approach whereby the state department of education, in partnership with teachers across the state, evaluated dozens of math and ELA curriculum programs, sorting them into three quality tiers and publishing the results online. Districts that adopted the top 鈥淭ier 1鈥� programs were given financial incentives and state-provided professional development to encourage adoption, thus, in the words of one state education official, 鈥渕aking the best choice the easy choice.鈥� Initial results were encouraging: the 2015 NAEP tests showing that 鈥淟ouisiana 4th graders showed the highest growth among all states . . . and the second-highest in math鈥� provide suggestive evidence that curriculum reform holds promise as an effective weapon for raising test scores.

Crucially, there is broad support among teachers for the adoption and implementation of HQIM. In a May 2022 report on the availability of HQIM, EdReports, the leading reviewer of instructional materials in the United States, surveyed teachers and asked how important it was for the materials they use to be aligned with standards. Nearly three-fourths (73.3 percent) of teachers said it was 鈥渆xtremely important,鈥� and another 20.9 percent said it was 鈥渟omewhat鈥� important. Even so, the actual use of HQIM in classrooms is shockingly low. EdReports also found that only 25.6 percent of teachers used at least one ELA standards鈥揳ligned material per week, with that percentage rising to 39.7 percent for math standards materials. This reinforces the impression that teachers lack the discernment when choosing or customizing curricular materials to exercise their judgment appropriately. Reducing this gap between the belief in using HQIM and the actual use of those materials is a key priority in making sure students get the best possible education.

The benefits of a core curriculum

For decades, the renowned education theorist E. D. Hirsch Jr. has argued for the adoption of a core curriculum across academic disciplines and from the first days of school based on a belief, firmly grounded in cognitive science, that a shared body of knowledge is an essential building block of literacy in an economically and socially diverse country. Hirsch鈥檚 argument emphasizes that a core curriculum would help bridge gaps in knowledge among students from diverse backgrounds, promote social cohesion, and equip individuals with the foundational knowledge necessary for success in various academic and professional pursuits, while contributing to the broadly embraced goal of building students鈥� critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Hirsch鈥檚 vision suggests that there should be far more similarities than differences in the student experience regardless of where a child attends school and regardless of their socioeconomic status. Specifying the knowledge and skills that children should share and which their education would give them fair and equal access to would promote educational excellence and equity, allowing all to engage meaningfully in society, understand complex texts, and communicate effectively.

It is beyond the reach of even the most determined policymaker to impose a single curriculum on America鈥檚 K鈥�12 education system, however, simply because no such system exists. The word 鈥渆ducation鈥� famously appears nowhere in the US Constitution, thus devolving the responsibility to the individual states. The political unpopularity of Common Core State Standards, commonly mistaken for a national curriculum, demonstrates the hostility to anything approaching federal control of classroom content. Our tradition of local control of education makes it unlikely in the extreme that the United States will ever adopt the kind of national curriculum common to many other nations, including those whose academic performance easily outpaces our own. Any significant momentum to make curricular content more consistent from state to state, from district to district, and even across the hall in the same school will have to be driven by reforms from within the field of education itself. The strongest argument for this is that it is simply too much to ask of teachers to be effective at both curriculum design and delivery. It places undue burden on teachers with no evidence of effectiveness for students.

In his 2016 book Leadership for Teacher Learning, Dylan Wiliam observes that when teachers are asked to identify something that they will stop doing or do less of to create time and space for them to explore improvements to their teaching, they fail miserably. 鈥淭hey go through the list of their current tasks and duties and conclude that there is nothing they can stop doing or do less of, because everything that they are doing contributes to student learning,鈥� he writes. 鈥淚n my experience, it is hardly ever the case that teachers are doing things that are unproductive. This is why leadership in education is so challenging. The essence of effective leadership is stopping people from doing good things to give them time to do even better things.鈥�

What might those 鈥渂etter things鈥� include? For my own 2019 book, How the Other Half Learns, I spent a year embedded in a high-performing Success Academy charter school in New York City鈥檚 South Bronx, a few blocks from where I鈥檇 taught fifth grade in a struggling elementary school run by the New York City Department of Education some years earlier. Success Academy, a network of approximately fifty charter schools based in New York City, has distinguished itself with an outstanding track record of high achievement among the predominantly low-income, minority students it serves. If it were a stand-alone public school district, its test scores would make it New York State鈥檚 best-performing district, despite the high concentration of poverty in most of the neighborhoods in which its schools are located.

The purpose of the book was to see what lessons could be gleaned from Success Academy鈥檚 instructional model and exported to K鈥�12 public education at large. In the course of my reporting, I interviewed a pair of hedge fund managers who had written the charter school application for what was originally called Gotham Charter School. Joel Greenblatt and John Petry focused their efforts on creating a school model that was replicable, a conviction reinforced by visits to high-performing New York City charters like KIPP Infinity Middle School in Harlem. 鈥淲e were watching this amazing English lesson. I elbowed the assistant teacher and said, 鈥楯ust for my interest, what鈥檚 the background of that teacher?鈥�,鈥� Greenblatt told me in an interview for the book. 鈥溾�楬e wrote for [the television sitcom] Frasier for five years,鈥欌�� she replied. 鈥淚t would be wonderful if everyone could have that teacher, but everyone can鈥檛,鈥� Greenblatt explained.

This insight was out of step with the education orthodoxy of the time and the orthodoxy of the 鈥渘o excuses鈥� charter school movement in particular. But it found its way under CEO Eva Moskowitz into the model of Success Academy, which implements a single curriculum across its network, creating ripple effects in the classroom. Like teachers everywhere, Success Academy staff spend a significant amount of their time preparing lessons for students. However, where lesson planning for many, even most, US teachers involves lesson creation or customization, at Success Academy it鈥檚 referred to as 鈥渋ntellectual preparation.鈥� As the name implies, it means preparing to teach a lesson or unit, not creating one from scratch. This appears to greatly contribute to one of Success Academy鈥檚 most significant accomplishments: its ability to get uniformly good results from relatively inexperienced teachers. It is important to note that Success Academy鈥檚 curriculum is not 鈥渟cripted.鈥� Teachers work from an established curriculum鈥攗nits and lesson sequences prepared by network-level staff. Success Academy鈥檚 model asks teachers to focus on teaching, not on creating curriculum or gathering instructional resources. Compared to the more common practice of lesson planning as lesson design, Success Academy鈥檚 model functionally creates hours of capacity for teachers to look at data, study student work, diagnose, act, adapt, and intervene quickly when students are struggling or falling behind. As Moskowitz told me at the time, 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 be successful in our model without studying student work.鈥�

One of the promises of the US charter school movement is that those schools might serve as laboratories for innovative instructional practices and strategies. Adopting a core curriculum and asking teachers to focus on lesson delivery, not on lesson design, and asking them to study student work and become effective diagnosticians and interventionists is one such practice that appears worth emulating.

Conclusion

Gifted musicians in an orchestra generally do not write the symphonies they play. We do not think less of a talented actor who merely performs but did not write a Shakespearean tragedy. Great chefs need not be farmers, butchers, or fishermen. Teachers, by noteworthy contrast, are expected to be both expert lesson deliverers and instruction designers. Significantly, this expectation is something the profession tends to valorize; it didn鈥檛 drift into it. Teachers College at Columbia University, for example, among the premier teacher preparation programs in America, maintains as a core tenet of its Master of Arts in Curriculum and Teaching program that 鈥渢eachers are necessarily and rightly adapters and designers of curriculum.鈥� There is no evidence that this practice benefits students.

Making curriculum an afterthought in our efforts to improve student outcomes and giving insufficient professional development to properly implement those materials when they are adopted makes a hard job nearly impossible and virtually enshrines poor performance and teacher burnout as policy. As Marcy Stein, an education professor with expertise in evaluating instructional design at the University of Washington鈥揟acoma, puts it, 鈥淔ew teachers ever take coursework on instructional design and, therefore, have little knowledge of the role it plays in student learning.鈥� Further reflecting on the many extraneous burdens we place on teachers, Stein notes:

Even if teachers were taught about instructional design, they would likely not have the time to prepare instructional materials, field test those materials to determine if they are effective, and modify the materials before using them to teach students. An iterative process is crucial for the development of effective materials.

Readers might be tempted to see in between the lines of the preceding quotation an argument for the elimination of teacher autonomy or even a case for 鈥淢cSchool,鈥� a basic education deliverable by teachers of minimal competence and cognition who must be spoon-fed a scripted curriculum. Having anticipated this argument, let me put it to rest. An idea that is common to teacher training and professional development is that there should be a 鈥渨hy鈥� behind everything a teacher does in the classroom, from classroom management to instructional decisions. The same principle applies here: the point is not for school districts to adopt a curriculum and for teachers to deliver it robotically. Well-prepared teachers should acquire through their training and professional development a sophisticated understanding of their subject matter and pedagogy and have it operationalized for them in the form of a curriculum or program.

The one thing we cannot give teachers is more time. It is too much to ask of teachers to create their own programs and curricula; the opportunity costs are profound. The twofold challenge for policymakers is to privilege the adoption of an effective curriculum but also for teachers to understand why it鈥檚 effective. It cannot be denied that the current culture of teaching largely expects teachers to both deliver and design curricula, making it less likely they do either expertly. This de facto demand tends to result in a student experience that is incoherent, marked by curriculum gaps and repetitions and by lessons that are lacking in rigor. The principal point here is to return to teachers time spent needlessly or excessively planning units and lessons from scratch so that they can spend more time on higher-yielding activities: studying student work, giving feedback, deepening their subject expertise, and building relationships with students and families.

The ed reform era, now receding in power and prestige, overestimated the impact of education policy and 鈥渟tructural reform鈥� to improve student outcomes. Renewed efforts to improve school performance must focus on instructional reform. This does not imply, however, that there is no role for policymakers, only that they must be clear-eyed about their leverage and its limits, keeping in mind these key takeaways:

• Efforts to improve student outcomes by changing the composition of the teacher workforce or dramatically raising their level of sophistication and skill are unlikely to be successful due to the large number of teachers needed to staff our schools. What must change is the job: teaching must be doable by women and men of ordinary talents and sentience

• While the evidence base is insufficiently robust to say with certainty, there is ample reason to suggest it is easier, less expensive, and more effective to change curricula than to change teachers.

• The soul of effective teaching is studying student work, giving effective feedback, and developing relationships with students. Teacher time spent on curating and customizing lessons, however valuable, takes time away from these more impactful uses of teacher time. The adoption of a high-quality curriculum and training on its effective implementation is the first, most critical step toward transforming the teacher鈥檚 job.

• Education occurs in a public context; there will always be a role for policymakers to ensure accountability. However, improvements at scale will not be wrested from rewards and punishments, nor from other 鈥渟tructural鈥� reforms.

There are, finally, encouraging signs in both education policy and practice that suggest a new willingness to question long-standing classroom practices and that curriculum and instruction are gaining traction as reform levers, at least in early childhood education. In the past few years, the science of reading (SoR) movement has emerged as one such welcome development in literacy education.

Drawing upon a deep research base in a variety of fields, including cognitive psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience, the movement has sought to reorient teacher training, curriculum adoption, and teacher professional development around evidence-based instructional practices, particularly foundational skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Critically, the SoR movement seeks to address the shortcomings in teacher preparation and professional development.

Indeed, much of the movement鈥檚 energy and focus have been directed at colleges of education, which have come under harsh scrutiny for their failure to adequately prepare teacher candidates to successfully teach reading. In a 2023 report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), which monitors and reports on teacher preparation programs, Dr. Heather Peske, NTCQ president, stated, 鈥淲e鈥檙e in the midst of a long overdue revolution on the science of reading but teacher prep programs haven鈥檛 fully caught up.鈥� The report studied nearly seven hundred teacher preparation programs across the country, looking for evidence that coursework for future elementary school teachers included 鈥渃ore components of scientifically based reading instruction.鈥� NCTQ determined that only 25 percent of the programs it evaluated adequately cover all five core components of scientifically based reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. 鈥淧erhaps more alarmingly, another 25% of programs do not adequately cover even a single component,鈥� the report noted.

What is true of teacher training can be said with equal certainty about curricula. It is simply too much to expect teachers to be able to effectively operationalize the science of reading in the absence of effective curriculum and professional development on its implementation. As many expert observers have noted, the SoR movement will ultimately succeed or fail not just on early literacy skills but through the adoption and implementation of the kind of 鈥渒nowledge-rich鈥� curriculum E. D. Hirsch Jr. and others have championed for decades. This requires collaboration and coordination by teachers within and across grades and over many years of schooling. It is literally impossible to accomplish if teachers simply close their doors and teach what they like. Thus, the SoR movement offers both a test case and a potential proof point for many of the arguments made above.

A strong, knowledge-based curriculum not only leads to smarter teachers and students but also has beneficial downstream effects, such as giving teachers the opportunity to develop subject matter expertise, help struggling students, and make connections with families rather than spending hours each week scouring the internet and creating lesson plans from scratch. Let鈥檚 not ask what more teachers can do. Let鈥檚 ask instead what are the things that only a teacher can do. Everything else should be a job for someone else.

See the full Hoover Institution initiative: .