Many teachers and parents raise concerns that instruction is age-inappropriate. Many school districts have signed on to Amplify to teach subjects including language arts and reading. Teachers must teach virtual, scripted, commercial programs.
Even if you don’t live in Oklahoma, I recommend checking online to read Tulsa Kids. Betty Casey is the editor and her reports about schools are well-written and informative.
Betty gave me permission to repost this report. It’s about Amplify’s Core Knowledge Language Arts online program. It’s an eye-opener! It raises questions about how Amplify is being used not only in Oklahoma but around the country.
Are the instructional objectives and expectations with Amplify’s online reading and language arts program too advanced for children? See what you think.
Also, once again teachers feel the need to be anonymous in order to state their concerns about an academic program. This should worry parents.
Is CKLA the Best Way to Teach Children to Read?
~By Betty Casey
October 23, 2019
Note: Five TPS (Tulsa Public Schools) teachers from three schools were interviewed for this article. All of them have at least eight years of experience and all are certified teachers in elementary schools. They spoke under condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the district. Devin Fletcher, chief academic officer at TPS, was invited to explain the district’s choice of CKLA, and also to respond to the teachers’ concerns, but as of press time, he had not responded to the emailed questions that the TPS administration requested.
Do you think primogeniture is fair? Justify your answer with three supporting reasons.
You may think this is from a high school test, but it’s a question from a Common Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) workbook for third-graders.
Why is the War of 1812 often referred to as America’s second war for independence? In your response, describe what caused the war and Great Britain’s three-part plan for defeating the United States. This is a writing task for second-grade students.
A first-grade Tulsa Public Schools teacher described this reading lesson: “You say, ‘I’m going to say one of the vocabulary words, and I’m going to use it in a sentence. If I use it correctly in a sentence, I want you to circle a happy face. If I use it incorrectly, I want you to circle a sad face. The sentence is Personification is when animals act like a person.’”
That lesson is given 10 days after the start of school. “I had kids who wouldn’t circle either one,” the teacher said. “Some cried. I have sped (special education) kids in my room, and they had no idea. That’s wrong. Good grief! These are 6-year-olds!”
This is a rubric by a second-grade TPS student to answer the following writing task: “Draw and write what you know about the five senses. Use words from our word wall.”
Recently, the happy and sad faces have been replaced by CANVAS (an ed-tech company) so children now respond on screens.
“It’s awful,” she says. “They have to take their assessments on the computer, except the writing portion.”
The writing assessment asks first-grade students to complete a rubric using words and pictures. In one assessment, children are prompted to retell a fable or folktale that they have read, and to include a character, the setting, an important event from the beginning, middle and end of the plot, and then write the moral in their own words.
This is a rubric by a second-grade TPS student to answer the following writing task: “Choose one of the stories we have read. Write and draw about a character, the setting, and what happened in the beginning, middle and end of a story.”
“This is especially difficult with our student population,” another first-grade teacher explained, “because we have so many children who come in not speaking English. This is an unrealistic expectation, and it certainly doesn’t make it inviting.”
CKLA is a product of Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., an entertainment/news media company. The corporation planned to disrupt the American education industry as a newcomer in the curriculum development arena by introducing its own tablet computer and bundled education software into classrooms across the United States. When the ed-tech company didn’t deliver on its financial objective, Murdoch sold it to private investors.
Allowing flexibility to experiment with untested ideas and products that may be disruptive, and may often fail, can be a positive in business (sometimes described as “failing forward”) but can be devastating to school systems where children are the losers when the product doesn’t deliver on promises.
Shannon Johnson, a TPS teacher for 14 years who now works at TU’s University School, noticed a shift in focus when TPS accepted the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant for teacher evaluations.
“There was a push to have business practices put into place for education, but it didn’t work,” Johnson says. “The evaluation tools, the rubric, was a huge change.”
In 2009, the Gates Foundation invested millions of dollars to experiment with something called a value-added model to use a scientific approach to quantify and evaluate a teacher’s effectiveness in improving student outcomes. A RAND Corporation study found that the Gates reform “did not achieve its stated goals for students, particularly low-income minority students…”
“I don’t think you can ‘value add’ a teacher. You can’t assign a number to what we add or create a mathematical equation to measure what we do as teachers,” Johnson said, even though her value-added number was quite high. “Clearly, I didn’t put a lot of value in it.”
What is CKLA?
Amplify CKLA is described on www.amplify.com as “a unique core curriculum for PreK–5 ELA, combining rich, diverse content knowledge in history, science, literature, and the arts with systematic, research-based foundational skills instruction…The Core Knowledge Language Arts Listening and Learning Strand is designed to help students build the background knowledge and vocabulary critical to listening and reading comprehension.” It also promises “off-the-charts reading growth in K-8,” but provides no research to back this claim.
While districts that adopt the curriculum may see it as an innovative, rigorous common core product that levels the playing field for all children, an Ad Hoc Committee tasked to study the Core Knowledge Curriculum in Rochester, New York, found otherwise.
Tasked with addressing educators’ concerns, the committee stated that the “Core Knowledge Curriculum has essentially the same curricular content used in American public schools since before people of African ancestry were allowed to go to school. It is conceptually the same curriculum that was in use as urban districts became predominantly Black and Latino.”
The committee writes, “There is no dispute among educators and psychologists over the developmental concept that learning for very young students would begin with themselves, which includes their families, communities and ancestral origins. However, in Core Knowledge Curriculum, young students primarily learn about Europeans and their ancestors.”
Particularly concerning to the committee were racial, class and gender stereotypes in the stories, fairytales and myths. They felt that “from a developmental standpoint, examples for young students…would largely come from the best of the African world and Diaspora, past and present. Once grounded in self and cultural knowledge, children are ready for exposure to the worlds around them. This was still the approach for white students…but when it comes to Black and Latina/o students, this approach is highly resisted.”
The committee also expressed “alarm regarding the detrimental impact of highly paced and scripted lessons…” on English language learners and special education students.
These mirror concerns of some TPS teachers and reading professionals.
The speed at which teachers are required to complete lessons also frustrated the teachers interviewed for this article.
“The principal says it’s only a tool,” a first-grade teacher said, “but she also says it has to be done on time to take the assessment. If we do one lesson a day (CKLA and Eureka Math), we’re not even through it. There are days we can’t even get to a lesson, or the kids might need two days on one lesson. We can’t do that. Everybody has to be on the same lesson at the same time. There’s no time to give children extra help. They (the administration) tell us to just keep going. They’ll get it by the end of the year. About half of them are failing reading.”
A veteran teacher who has taught CKLA in third and fourth grades at another TPS school described her concerns about content and delivery.
“CKLA teaches a lot of content, but not necessarily scaffold and spiral,” she said. “It builds on content so kids in primary grades learn about ancient civilizations, and it shows some vertical articulation, but it doesn’t have good scope and sequence when learning skills. It’s not developmentally appropriate to introduce a skill or curriculum or new learning concept and then not refer to it again for a very long time.”
One of the selling points of CKLA is that it is content rich. The rationale is that children, especially those coming from impoverished backgrounds, need to be exposed to a lot of content in order to achieve equity with their more privileged peers. Many teachers, however, say the content is developmentally inappropriate and, as the Rochester, NY, committee found, not culturally sensitive. Teachers also say that the curriculum is dry and workbook heavy (9-14 workbooks in first through third grades), and they have no time or autonomy to make sure the children are actually learning. They also have little time to try to create meaningful context so that students will understand the lessons.
Even though the principal at one school told teachers that they could supplement with outside material, the teachers said that CKLA doesn’t allow time for that. As long-time educators, these teachers have developed engaging supplemental units and hands-on projects, but those materials sit gathering dust in a closet because there’s no time to use them.
One teacher said that her principal was “very disappointed that there wasn’t a lot of neat stuff in the hall, but CKLA doesn’t allow for much creative-type work. I didn’t want to hang worksheets in the hall,” she said.
Teacher Training
Dr. Mindy Smith, a recently retired NSU literacy professor and owner of Lavender’s Bleu Literacy Market, a children’s bookstore and literacy center in south Tulsa, has seen significant changes in how reading is taught. While she says that professors are sending teachers out with good skills and qualifications, the new teachers are facing fewer opportunities to use those professional skills.
“It’s a challenging job to teach,” Smith said. “We feel good about our candidates, but there’s been a change in districts. What we feel is good practice hasn’t changed at all over the years, but how districts say it needs to be delivered is not the same. Unfortunately, there’s not enough autonomy. They don’t trust teachers enough to give them autonomy. Knowing the kids and guiding your instruction based on the kids doesn’t really happen anymore. It’s more prescribed.”
Smith feels that using a scripted curriculum may be the result of having so many emergency certified teachers.
“It’s not the right thing for kids,” Smith said, “and teachers intuitively feel that. I would tell my university students to continue to try to differentiate instruction when they started teaching. When districts have a thumb on you, you don’t feel you’re being successful. It’s not fun to teach.”
However, Smith says she is encouraged by the interest in her workshops for teachers at Lavender’s Bleu. They have been well attended, and teachers are excited about learning effective and creative classroom strategies for teaching reading.
Testing and Professional Autonomy
After an 8-year break from teaching, Shannon Johnson returned post-No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which introduced high-stakes testing into public education. Johnson was hitting the 90th percentile and above with her fourth-graders, and enjoyed professional autonomy.
“I had autonomy until CKLA was adopted,” Johnson said. “My first two principals at Carnegie let us teach how we wanted, and the third one did as well until she was instructed to make us use the district-wide CKLA scripted curriculum.”
For Johnson, who had always based her lessons on high-quality children’s literature, CKLA was a step back to the old “Dick and Jane” basal reading approach of dry text followed by workbook pages. CKLA left little room for teaching critical thinking, new vocabulary and interesting content. It also took away the opportunity to encourage her students to love reading.
“You get a piece of a book (with CKLA),” she said, “a taste of a book, not a full novel experience. We always read whole books, and studied them, and I worked my curriculum around it. We would do projects and spelling lists, and language arts. I don’t remember any chapter of a basal reader, but my former students talk about the books we read.”
The last year that Johnson taught at TPS she said she did not teach CKLA, although “everyone else in the district was teaching it. I was teaching literacy rich lessons using novels, not CKLA,” she said, “and my OCCT reading scores were the highest for fourth grade in the district.”
Johnson said she couldn’t continue at TPS when the district required that she use CKLA, so she left.
“I’m a TPS grad, and I loved the school I was in, but I wasn’t treated like a professional. My job was to make the students love reading. I’m supposed to read a script and follow along?” she said. “I’m not needed.”
Many teachers echoed Johnson’s assertion that part of their job was to encourage a love of reading, and were trying hard to find ways to create contextual relevance with CKLA.
“I try to hook the lessons to something kids have already known or experienced,” one teacher explained. “The kids are learning about the Roman Empire, aqueducts 2000 years ago. They don’t have the concept of time to understand that, so we’ve been talking about how ancient Romans invented concrete – roads are made from concrete. The lesson says that Romans developed veto. Do they understand what veto is? They might make connections,” she said.
Although she is trying to find ways to make CKLA content fun and engaging, this teacher says it’s difficult.
“I wouldn’t want my children taught this way,” she said. “I don’t know the rationale behind adopting it. The curriculum doesn’t light up the eyes of kids. It removes the autonomy from the teacher. I guess if people have come through an alternate route and don’t have a teaching degree, you can teach it without much experience.”
Tulsa teachers have also felt left out of the process of choosing a reading curriculum. Prior to Superintendent Gist taking over, the teachers would gather to review and discuss several curriculum options, and then vote on the best. Now, the district administration chooses the curriculum.
Peter DeWitt, Ed.D., a former elementary school principal, author and consultant in New York, who has worked as a consultant in Oklahoma, says that tying teacher evaluation to state testing has resulted in politicizing education, thus creating a system where states and districts work backwards from the test rather than beginning with the children.
“We’ve seen an increase in special needs and mental health,” DeWitt said, “because people want their kids to do better on the test. We know for a fact that principals and superintendents are taking recess out of the curriculum…taking away brain breaks.”
DeWitt believes that some students understand the CKLA content because they have already had exposure at home, but there is a large percentage of students who will not understand it.
“Kids in poverty are going to be the ones who struggle more,” DeWitt said. “CKLA doesn’t bridge the gap, and they’re having it shoved down their throats. Oklahoma has one of the highest percentages of kids living in trauma. We’re not going to meet them at an academic level unless we’re meeting the social and emotional needs. I’m sad for Oklahoma because of low pay, lack of resources, kids in trauma and poverty.
The way they teach will trigger their trauma. And with compliance classroom management, the kid will look like the one with the problem, but it’s the teaching strategy that is the problem.”
Expecting young children to perform academic tasks and skills before they’re developmentally and cognitively ready can lead to frustration, both for student and teacher.
“One of the things that has been so disconcerting is the expectations about what is developmentally appropriate for kids,” Mindy Smith said. “What we expected of children readiness-wise in kindergarten in the mid ‘80s compared to now is exponentially different.”
Smith says that first- and second-grade academic expectations are now expected of kindergarten and first graders. “It’s really unfair. How you teach a preschooler is very different from how you teach a second grader because of their developmental abilities – how long they can sit, how long they can stay on task. We’ve made expectations unreasonable to achieve.”
The two first-grade teachers interviewed said that kindergarten children are expected to come to first grade knowing material that they are not cognitively ready for such as all letters and sounds, consonant-vowel-consonant words, how to phonetically blend words together, and to be able to write complete sentences at the end of kindergarten. And teachers only have the first three weeks of first grade to “review” these lessons.
“The children are so overwhelmed,” one teacher lamented. “I’ve got kids who say, ‘when is it time to go home? When is lunch?’ They cry because they don’t understand it, and the speed of the lessons doesn’t allow time to go back and review and reteach.”
According to The Alliance for Childhood, there is no research documenting long-term gains from learning to read in kindergarten. In a report entitled “Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose,” researchers found that adopting these standards “falsely implies that having children achieve these standards will overcome the impact of poverty on development and learning, and will create equal educational opportunity for all children.” In fact, a study found the opposite to be true. Preschoolers and kindergarteners show “greater gains from play-based programs than from preschools and kindergartens with a more academic focus. Active, play-based experiences in language-rich environments help children develop their ideas about symbols, oral language and the printed word – all vital components of reading.”
Reading Problems or a Testing Problem
Sometimes trauma or inappropriate curriculum may make a child look as if she has a learning disability. Another issue may be the method of testing or the test itself.
“With MAP (Measures of Academic Progress, www.nwea.org), students get a percentile,” a first-grade teacher explained. “If you’re a kindergartner or a first-grader under a 40th percentile, we make a reading plan. There are 44 questions on a computer for 5- and 6-year-olds.
They may take 10 minutes to do it. I have a student who scored 35 percent, yet he is in my top reading group. He can read second-grade material. But the opposite can happen as well. You can get someone who scores high on the MAP test, but they can’t do anything. Lucky guesser. On the questions, you have to push the button to get the story, then you have to push a button for the question, then you have four more buttons for the different answers, and then you have to figure out which one is the correct one and go back to that.”
The teachers said that often the computers won’t work, or the students are constantly kicked out of the program. “These kids are just trying to learn, but they give up. They don’t even attempt it, because it’s just too much,” said one teacher.
Oklahoma HB 1228 requires annual professional development training programs for dyslexia awareness for teachers and administrators beginning in the 2020-21 school year. At a minimum, the law requires training in awareness of dyslexia characteristics in students; training in effective classroom instruction to meet the needs of students with dyslexia; and available dyslexia resources for teachers, students and parents.
The Dyslexia and Education Task Force developed Oklahoma Dyslexia Handbook: A Guide to Literacy Development and Reading Struggles. The book’s purpose is to provide information and guidance about dyslexia to those who work with children and youth. (https://sde.ok.gov/)
According to Dr. Penny Stack, OTD, OTR/L, CLT and owner of the Dyslexia Center of Tulsa, dyslexia is a complex neurological difference that is much more than a problem with reading, yet educators too often look at the problem through the lens of teaching children to read.
“The difference between what schools do and what we do here (at the Dyslexia Center),” Stack says, “is that schools work on the educational model – getting the child back into the classroom as quickly as possible – and we use a medical model.”
Stack says that going over and over the same areas will not help the person with dyslexia until the underlying neural pathway has been built to support the educational component. In her initial assessment of a child, Stack looks at all the cognitive functions required for reading success, including the underlying issues such as “lived experience,” “confidence,” “self-esteem” and “grit.” Sometimes she discovers that a child is suffering from trauma, which is causing what looks like a learning disability, but is actually something else, and it may take a different kind of therapy to get the child on track to read.
Stack works on the whole brain system, and if there are any holes in the system, the child will continue to have difficulty. “I’ve seen fifth graders who could read at a high school level, but they can’t remember a thing they’re reading. They slip through the cracks. They’re getting A’s and B’s in school, but they have to spend five hours on homework.”
She is glad to see the state investing in training teachers to understand and recognize dyslexia.
“No matter what reading program you’re using, that pattern has to be addressed,” she says. “I would love to see us spend money in the early years doing a medical model rather than an educational model to help these kids. Their dropout rate is significant. We could keep these kids from dropping out.”
In the End
“Are we asking too much of students at too young an age?” Peter DeWitt asks. “We have taken away the voice of the student and the autonomy of the teacher. If kids aren’t allowed to have a voice, it will come out in another way, and it may be a way you don’t like. It’s so much more than some script that teachers have to read. Top-down compliance strips away voices of teachers and students. We don’t need to go back to a time with total autonomy and no accountability. We need to find a balance of autonomy, accountability and responsibility.”
Betty says
Thanks for reposting this, Nancy. The district never did respond to my article; however, the PR agency in NYC for Amplify did. I sent them some questions to respond to, printed the answers in TulsaKids. I find it interesting that whenever I write about the ed-tech, edu-business products, the responses are from PR representatives who work for these companies, so how much can a PR company be trusted to actually understand the product? When I wrote about Summit, a PR person in San Francisco responded to me, not a local district administrator. The same thing happened with an article about No Nonsense Nurturing. There were no peer-reviewed studies that I could find on any of these products. The PR companies said that the products use tested, gold-standard methods. To an extent, that may be true, but they mix it in with untested, often age-inappropriate and developmentally inappropriate curricula.
Nancy Bailey says
I appreciate this, Betty. I hope readers outside of Oklahoma check on your writings in Tulsa Kids which tap into concerns surrounding today’s school reforms. Here is No Nonsense Nurturing. https://www.tulsakids.com/teachers-cant-find-the-nurturer-in-tpss-classroom-management-system/
You are right! I have seen no peer reviewed research showing online programs as being a game changer. The companies rely on their own reporting and advertisement as proof, which is unreliable.
Then there’s this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34174796
Katlin Simula says
This article is primarily on how it teaches children. Looking further into Amplify CKLA I have concerns about some inapproriate content/stories/vocab words. Is anyone else around the US finding this too?
Rita Olschewski says
I have been a. volunteer in a first grade classroom for 9 weeks, and while I like the knowledge part of the curriculum, I have serious concerns with the skills portion. It is focused way too heavily on auditory learning and worksheets, and there is not enough visual reinforcement either with instruction or with worksheets. The time allotted is laughable, so much gets rushed through. Appostrophes in First Grade in the first 9 weeks!
Rirt
Kim says
Our district in Alaska has just announced it will be purchasing CKLA Amplify for K-5. We teachers voiced our concerns about the subjects in the knowledge strand. We were ignored.
Nancy Bailey says
Thanks for sharing, Kim. I hear that now and then. It is troubling.
Julie MacDonald says
I would like everyone reading these posts to go to the Common Core Standards for 1st grade, or any grade for that matter and determine if the material meets the standards, or use some other material that dumbs down the kids and ensures they will not be ready to take state mandated tests when they hit 3rd grade. Come on people hold kids to a higher standard.
Nancy Bailey says
Why do you think mandated tests and Common Core are age appropriate? Teachers seem to disagree.
speduktr says
The teachers who commented were quite circumspect. I could not believe the questions young children were expected to handle. Oklahoma is obviously controlled by people who have never taught. I shudder to think what they expect of high school students if this is what first and second graders must master. I was asked to deliver a scripted math lesson in an elementary special ed classroom, in which I was a substitute for a parapro. I literally read a script while students worked in workbooks that I could not see and were not illustrated in the script. I might have understood the level of control if I was not a certified special ed teacher, although I never had an assistant that needed that level of direction. It was totally mindless and broke every rule of good teaching you could think of.
Nancy Bailey says
Well-put. Thank you! The explicit phonics programs are direct instruction. A reading specialist I know recently asked why teachers need special training. The current criticism is that teachers need such preparation from their Schools of Education. But with direct instruction, all teachers do is read from a manual!
I taught a direct instruction program my district purchased. There might be a place for a little of this, but it is overrated and certainly not excellent teaching.
speduktr says
Direct instruction and scripted instruction are not the same thing. There is definitely a place for direct instruction, which is under the control of the teacher. Scripted instruction demands that the teacher present a canned recitation. I haven’t run across any such instruments written by classroom teachers for classroom teachers, only programs produced by private companies. Does that tell you something? Let’s make learning teacher proof!
Nancy Bailey says
You are correct. I should have said “Explicit Direct Instruction.”
I agree that these programs come from private companies.
speduktr says
Yes, I should have said that scripted lessons are a type of direct instruction. I thought about that as I wrote it, but thought I really wanted to emphasize that direct instruction is more than canned programs, poorly as it turns out.
Nancy Bailey says
No. You were right. And “canned” is it. I taught one of these programs once. Anyone could have done it. Reciting what the manual told you. I don’t think it was effective. You could have put it on the computer and removed the teacher too. Fancy that!
Gwen white says
Please allow teachers to teach. Our children are not robots, nor are the teachers. Common Core all phases really takes the joy out of learning.. It has to take the joy out of teaching to be so handicapped. Children learn in different ways and must not be held to this one type of learning. It is truly sad and should be abolished.
Sheila Resseger says
I am at a loss for words to describe how unutterably sad and angry this makes me. The developmentally inappropriate questions remind me of the Engage NY language materials that I had looked at years ago. Not surprisingly, when I just looked up Engaged NY, I find that it has now morphed into CKLA–Core Knowledge Language Arts. The pedagogical/emotional/cognitive harm being perpetrated on young children and their dedicated teachers by this technological approach is indefensible. And as usual, the most vulnerable children are harmed the most. If teachers and parents don’t rise up against this inhumane and counter-productive approach to “teaching/learning” and demand humane, engaging curricula for all children, we will have enabled an irreversible calamity on our society.
Phyllis says
Sheila- that’s the word for it- a calamity. As a kindergarten teacher I have seen learning by play for five and six-year-olds shrink to the point where they are expected to sit and do paper-based activities for most of the day- or other developmentally inappropriate activities. Forcing 5-6 year olds to write sentences and paragraphs when they have just learned to grip a crayon. Labeling them “struggling” if they’re not reading by the time they leave kindergarten. And every one of the skills we are pushing on them can and will be learned with ease in first or even second grade – when the brain is ready. In the name of instructional minutes, recess has been systematically removed (or greatly decreased) in schools! It IS a calamity and the victims are the kids. They are physically and emotionally unhealthy. Obesity, stress, anxiety and suicide (In KIDS!) are all at all time highs. The power to change this damaging trend lies squarely in the hands of superintendents and principals. Michael Hines of Port Washington, New York is one superintendent who has the wisdom and courage to do that in his district. Hoping and praying that many more will follow his lead!
Phyllis says
Hi Nancy, I read your article with interest as a teacher with first-hand experience using CKLA. My experience with the testing process was a carbon copy of what was written here. Here is the article I wrote soon after familiarizing myself and my students with CKLA. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/02/test-prep-for-5-year-olds-is-a-real-thing-heres-what-it-looks-like/?outputType=amp
.
My school district is now using HMH Into Reading. The kindergarten curriculum is horrifying. In the first few weeks of school children were to write an opinion piece using a five step writing process from first draft to publication. A high school teacher that I know said her sophomores have difficulty with this task!
Could not possibly have been a kindergarten teacher anywhere in sight when this absurd curriculum was written. So basically what happens is, both teacher and student are being set up for frustration and failure.
What a horrible place we have gotten to when kindergarten discourages our youngest learners.
Nancy Bailey says
Hi Phyllis, I’m sorry it took so long to reply. Your comment is unsettling! I remembered your article in WaPo, and you covered it well. You clearly describe the movement to privatize schools. I wonder how many parents are not aware of this terrible agenda. Thank you for sharing your experiences. More teachers and parents need to do so.
GINI says
Phyllis, do you mean that HMH into Reading is horrifying, or were you still talking about CKLA?
Charles Emanuel Gerald says
Why so many people making millions of dollars off children
These people are not educators why
Like police
So called mental health psychologist
So called school counselors
These people make more money then the teachers in the classroom with these children
Phyllis says
Yes Charles, money is what it all boils down to. Curriculum publishers are reckless, irresponsible. and greedy. They tell district decision-makers that their curriculum is just the thing to boost test scores. And irresponsible, misguided district leadership, frothing at the mouth to advance their all-important data, buy it.
We, teachers and students, are at their mercy. But the system is imploding because our children are unhealthy physically and emotionally. Anxiety, stress and suicide have reached all time highs. scores are no higher. And stressed out, frustrated teachers are leaving the field like never before. The whole thing is a travesty. ????
A Teacher says
Not to discount anything you said, because you’re not wrong..
But CKLA is a product of the Core Knowledge Foundation, which is a non-profit, and the entire curriculum (including CKSCI, and CKHG) are available to the public for free download on their website. They developed this curriculum and then gave it away for free. Amplify has a contract with them to print and distribute it, and to make it digital and interactive.
Dionne says
Our school district was looking at CKLA but chose against it for a number of reasons. Now our curriculum coordinator is looking at EL reading program. Any thoughts?
Nancy Bailey says
Your school district should be working with the teachers and parents and not relying on ANY online program to do all the instruction.
Emmett Hoops says
You start with some untruths. For example, the first grade assignment on personification? It doesn’t exist as you describe it. I teach first grade and have used CKLA for many years. Nor is the second grade assignment on the War of 1812 anything like you describe.
Nancy Bailey says
The report was written about teachers who were using the program and their concerns.
https://myshop.amplify.com/collections/ckla-1st-edition-grade-2-listening-learning-strand/products/ckla-1st-edition-g2-ll-d5-anthology-the-war-of-1812
teacher says
i teach 2nd grade and we haven’t quite gotten to the section on the war of 1812. before that comes we learn about “early asian civilizations.” we are finishing up the sections on the indus river valley and how its fertile soils led to the creation of civilizations. we immediately jump into: hinduism. this is where we compare Hinduism and buddhism, and we learn the different deities.
if the section and assessments are anything like they have been, i do not look forward to the upcoming “war of 1812” section.
for reference, here is a sample of my script:
Show image 3A-2: Hindus gathering at holy river
“Hindus believe that the holy waters of the Ganges can wash away their sins—or the bad things they have done. Hindus practice a religion called Hinduism. Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion and the third largest religion in the world. Hinduism is the most popular religion in India.”
loren says
I am currently teaching first grade with Amplify, and we had that exact assessment with the personification question a few weeks ago. Not an untruth.
Wendy Williamson says
I’m a 2nd grade teacher teaching the Amplify Knowledge curriculum. Yes, that is a writing prompt in the War of 1812 unit.
What YOU are writing is untrue.
The Ancient Greek units I just taught are absolutely inappropriate for 7 year olds. My students were horrified when Hades kidnapped Demeter’s daughter too because he loved her. This myth is the foundation for necromancy and black magic. Is it okay to steal daughters for forced marriage and sex? Parents should be informed about this content immediately!
Ana M Bills-Goggins says
Thank You for writing this. I was feeling so alone as veteran teacher. I am told it is just me and how I need to keep up with the younger teachers that are “CREATIVE”….NO!!!! This curriculum is wrong!!! Wrong for kids!! Wrong in every way. Specially for my second language learners. I am tired of trying to explain and falling on dead ears.
I now know I am NOT ALONE or CRAZY….BUT I hate that I am thinking of retirement , because I know that teaching was NEVER meant to be this way!!
Nancy Bailey says
Recognize gaslighting when you see it, Ana. I suggest you hang in there, doing what you have to, what the school requires, but focus on the teaching you believe is right for kids as much as possible. I know this might be not easy, but it is worth a try. And you might connect with the Badass Teachers Association on Facebook for moral support. Good luck, and thanks for sharing. You are not alone!
Phyllis Doerr says
This is great advice, Nancy. There are ways to keep the focus on the things we know are important for kids, as experts in the field. But you can’t have that influence if you leave. (Although trust me, I understand that your feelings.)
For example, I am convinced, based on my 13 years in the kindergarten classroom, that five and six year olds need “choice time “. They need to be able to have free time to work and play together, to pretend, to build and put puzzle pieces together, to get comfy with a book of their choice, and work side-by-side in the kitchen area. I believe they need these experiences as much as they need any content area. So, when a mandated daily schedule was squeezing out any playtime, I fought for it. I was given a very limited amount of playtime in the classroom but, alas, I stretched that playtime to longer periods of time and more days a week.
Stay in the classroom and do what you know is right. Lord knows at this point you’re not going to get fired. The teacher shortage is real.
Nancy Bailey says
I appreciate this, Phyllis. I’m afraid I can’t tell a teacher the best route to take. I like how you made the best of a rough situation, and I know some teachers can do this. For others, the assessment and lack of freedom are too much. I do appreciate your advice, though, and some teachers might take it! Thank you!
Phyllis says
I absolutely understand feeling that one must get out in order to protect one’s sanity, peace of mind and integrity when we know that decisions being made are harmful to kids. Heartbreaking.
A Teacher says
Part of this is incorrect. “ CKLA is a product of Amplify, the education division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., an entertainment/news media company. The corporation planned to disrupt the American education industry as a newcomer in the curriculum development arena by introducing its own tablet computer and bundled education software into classrooms across the United States”
CKLA is a product of the Core Knowledge Foundation, which provides its entire curriculum for free on its website. They describe themselves as “a nonprofit working for educational excellence and equity built on strong foundations of shared knowledge.”
The Core Knowledge Foundation has a contract with Amplify for the production and distribution of print and interactive digital content. Amplify didn’t create the curriculum. They just made it accessible.
Nancy Bailey says
I’m not sure you’re correct. https://amplify.com/programs/amplify-core-knowledge-language-arts/
Do you have a link that shows such a connection?
Another Teacher says
News Corp unveils education unit Amplify:
https://www.reuters.com/article/newscorp-amplify/news-corp-unveils-education-unit-amplify-idUSL2E8IN6UM20120723
Core Knowledge Foundation:
https://www.coreknowledge.org/
An update to the info from “A Teacher” … Amplify was sold by News Corp to Emerson Collective (Laurene Powell Jobs) in 2015:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90207561/amplify-education-gets-a-new-lease-on-life-this-time-from-a-nonprofit
Nancy Bailey says
Great links, thank you. I understand what you’re saying. Perhaps this is a better link. It is also important to add that there’s a cost with Amplify.
https://amplify.com/news/amplify-partners-with-core-knowledge-acquires-rights-to-new-language-arts-program/
“Amplify Learning will evolve the Core Knowledge Language Arts® program to a full digital format over time.”
https://www.coreknowledge.org/product/core-knowledge-language-arts/
Au says
I am so glad to have found this article, which effectively summarizes my feelings about a similar program, EL Education— a language arts curriculum my district adopted with zero teacher input (but it was “free” with a good score on EdReports so obviously it was the “best choice”). It is SO boring, there’s no room for choice or creativity. The constant worksheets and fast pace is just all horrendous. It makes me nauseous thinking about doing this all again next year! My administration also calls it “a tool” but insists we keep on the same pace in the program as each other, give the tests, add/cut as necessary but not too much, etc. I miss the autonomy, this is truly soul-crushing and I feel bad for the middle school students I teach who already came to me with a dislike of reading and writing. My goal in 17 years of teaching has always been to get my kids to authentically enjoy something about ELA, through engaging writing assignments and independent reading. This does not allow for that. They aren’t even allowed free choice in independent reading— it has to be tied to the read aloud topic! And we don’t read entire novels, just excerpts from chapters with summaries mixed in! The entirety of the middle school language arts department is against this program, but admin won’t budge because, even though it is “free”, the online resources are so hard to follow they spent a ton of money on the physical manuals. I could go on and on about what I do not like about this, but I see so much praise for the program online that I just feel crazy. Maybe it’s me… but I don’t think it is.
Nancy Bailey says
Thank you for sharing. Interesting that EL Education is from LearnZillion. My concern is that these programs will replace teachers. Stay in touch. I would like to hear what happens here.
https://learnzillion.com/p/
Rita Olschewski says
I am a volunteer in a 1st-grade classroom and have been for 7 years. This is the First Year of CKLA replacing Common Core and let me tell you, it is very frustrating to watch. The whole program is focused on listening and sitting still. Never mind that most kids are visual learners. There are parts of the program that are interesting, but CKLA sees teachers as technicians that can read canned teaching lessons, not as trained professionals who can handle teaching to objectives and Mastery! Whoever wrote these manuals neither knows the kids and their needs nor the teachers and their strengths.
Nancy Bailey says
I was reviewing this post today! It is always helpful to learn how this is working in the classroom. You’re a good observer and I bet you’ve been really helpful to the teacher and students. Thank you for sharing, Rita.
Lisa Diane Connell says
Unfortunately our District is using this curriculum as well. We adopted it last year. It is a scripted program that is for higher grades. The assessment pieces are ridiculous and the content is okay (Unit 2) animal classification. The vocabulary is middle school to High School. I am deeply saddened that we are not actually teaching foundational reading skills during core time. We are actually spending 45 minutes a week teaching students phonics and reading skills.
Nancy Bailey says
It’s tough when you’re put under constraints to teach what you see as unhelpful in the allotted time. Thanks for sharing, Lisa.
Katlin Simula says
Hi Nancy, I have been working locally and across the US about this curriculum. It is not age appropriate and I would love to chat with you more. You can send me an email.
Tee says
I agree this ELA CORE PROGRAM IS NOT CREATIVE ENOUGH FOR YOUNG MINDS AND I’S EXTREMELY CHALLENGING FOR STUDENTS IN SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS. IT’S EVEN CHALLENGING FOR US !
Nancy Bailey says
Thanks for your feedback.
Barbara J Parker says
I taught in Houston ISD for 26 years until I was forced out. It made me very sad, but the saddest part are all the teachers who come up to me and say, “You are so smart for getting out when you did! That was such a brilliant move!” No, it wasn’t! My poor colleagues that are still in the classroom are having all autonomy taken away. They are being forced to use scripts. They may no longer have reading nooks or special areas for the children to “create on their own.” The teachers are being observed and critiqued daily. It is a travesty of education!
Thank you for all the information that you supply in this column. I am passing it along to those who are still in the field. I hope the ideological reinforcement and camaraderie will help them continue the good fight. Please, teachers, don’t give up! You are the next generation’s hope. Thank you!
Nancy Bailey says
I’m sorry, Barbara. It’s sometimes hard for those who are not teachers to understand the sadness involved with leaving the classroom when it’s no longer a professional and autonomous place to be. I wish you the best in your following pursuits.
Lex B. says
At some point, teachers do need research based items to rely on so that they can back up what they are doing in the classroom. What program do you suggest? Unfortunately, teachers do not have the time to recreate the wheel. Suggesting that the teachers should just do it on their own is not safe, reliable, consistent, based in science, or helping them with their work load.
With this being said, what do you suggest they use?
Nancy Bailey says
Teachers don’t have time? Teachers have been teaching reading for decades, and most students leave public schools understanding how to read. When I was teaching, great care was taken to identify students with reading difficulties and get them the assistance they needed. Now they’re often plopped into large classes, and the demands are not made for children to read earlier than ever before. Why?
Amplify is an online program to make money and the research I’ve found on it is by Amplify. I have also developed a healthy questioning of all research these days, including peer-reviewed. Look to the sponsors of the research, and trust teachers, if they are in fact real teachers with university preparation, to be the teachers they are prepared to be.
Anonimo says
I came across this article which I find interesting. Since I am concerned with this curriculum. I just had the summer PD and they announced to us that we will use Amplify’s CKLA curriculum but in Spanish called CAMINOS. I teach Third grade at X school in Puerto Rico. I find that it has no cultural relevance in which my kids can make connections. Third grade has units such as Classic Stories, Europeans and their culture. European colonization, The Vikings, The first settlers in the thirteen colonies. The native Indians of the United States and among other topics… The younger grades, for example, start with a Kindergarten child writing sentences reacting to the readings. And reading fluently. When they just arrive in August without knowing the vowels. Completely worried. Because it is not only in Spanish that they changed the curriculum but also in mathematics they changed it to EUREKA MATH. What happened with which we have to first know our self, where we come from and then open ourselves to the world.
Nancy Bailey says
Wow! It is interesting that Amplify has found its way to Puerto Rico. It sounds like it isn’t well-adapted for the students and their needs. Thanks for letting us know, Anonimo. Do you also see an increase in the usage of online instruction with Amplify? That’s my ultimate fear.
Anonimo says
We already used to have the amplify assesments like dibbles, mclass, IDEL. Theres a lots of privates schools that uses curriculums like Amplify and HMH… into reading and into math.
Nancy Bailey says
Thanks!
Ashley says
That question is not in third grade’s activity book. I’ve taught this for three years. Last year my class was at 93 percent proficient. And I’m at a title school. The real problem with ckla is that it is too much work. Some of the read alouds are 40 min. I am reading out loud for 40 min. It’s like putting on a 2 hour circus show on top of all the other subjects I teach. I am ready to quit.