High-Quality Instruction: Initiative Closing Student Gaps Through Better Materials

Brock Turnipseed

Teachers are trailblazers, and despite the circumstances, they continue to fight the good fight. High-quality materials reduce the stress of teachers being solely responsible for creating instructional materials for students.

The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) recently partnered with seven other states in the Council of Chief State School Officers Instructional Materials and Professional Development Network to develop a high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) initiative that aligns to Mississippi’s College- and Career-Readiness Standards and will help the state continue producing tremendous gains in education.

“We recognized that this is our next big push for providing equitable access to materials for all children across the state,” said Dr. Tenette Smith, the executive director of the MDE Office of Elementary Education and Reading.

Smith and other MDE leadership met with Dr. David Steiner, the executive director of the Institute for Education Policy and a professor of education at Johns Hopkins University, and Rebecca Kockler, the former assistant superintendent of academic content at the Louisiana Department of Education, to begin crafting Mississippi’s HQIM definition and developing a plan to increase teacher capacity, improve student outcomes and offer equitable access for all of the state’s students.

With the HQIM definition and goals in place, the group collaborated with Student Achievement Partners, a nonprofit group dedicated to improving literacy and mathematics achievements in K-12 students, and EdReports, another nonprofit that works with educators to identify HQIM, to develop a rubric that progresses sequentially through three gateways aligned to meet the content standards and other indicators of high-quality curriculum as recommended by educators.

The gateways started with standards alignment and progressed to building knowledge followed by usability. Priority indicators were included in each gateway, including a set of Mississippi-specific criteria under the first gateway.

“As we worked to develop the rubric, we wanted to ensure English language arts materials provide all students access to complex texts and build and expand upon on their knowledge of the world,” said Kristen Wynn, the MDE’s state literacy director.

Packaged textbooks are pictured in a warehouse of The School Book Supply Company of Mississippi. The company has played an important part in the MDE’s high-quality instructional materials review process, efficiently delivering the submitted materials to the review team members at their homes or their schools.

The new rubric was a significant change from the state’s previous textbook adoption process that required materials to meet 80% of a standards checklist, so MDE officials decided to do something not previously done: train textbook publishers on the state’s new expectations for curriculum materials.

Packaged textbooks are pictured in a warehouse of the School Book Supply Company of Mississippi. The company played an important part in the MDE's high-quality instructional materials review process, efficiently delivering the submitted materials to the review team members at their homes or their schools.

“We spent an entire day training vendors on the new HQIM rubrics and answering all the questions they could possibly have as it relates to what is required to get on the state textbook adoption list,” said Dr. Marla Davis, the MDE’s state director of curriculum and instruction (K-12) and middle school program initiatives. “We didn’t want this process, as new and rigorous as it was, to be a ‘gotcha.’ It was really important for them to know what the new process was and to be prepared for it.”

The submitted materials were vetted by a review team comprised of Mississippi educators, and the state adopted those that met all three gateways and documented the evaluations of materials in evidence guides.

Math and social studies review and pilot phases took place during the 2019-2020 school year and were available for adoption in fall 2020. The ELA rubric was also developed in the fall and implemented this year.

Providing teachers, students and parents increased access to the materials, resources and support tools was vital to the new initiative’s success and is why the MDE collaborated with Mississippi First to launch the Mississippi Instructional Materials Matter website (msinstructionalmaterials.org), a central place for districts to review the HQIM materials, evaluate their current materials and find tools they can use to provide training for standards-aligned materials.

“For students, teachers and parents, the site gives them a better understanding of the importance of having high-quality curriculum materials that are not only standards-aligned, but also help support the teaching and learning process inside and outside of the classroom,” Davis said.

The COVID-19 pandemic struck as schools started to purchase math materials, and it reinforced a greater sense of urgency to provide all students with HQIM.

“We know that the learning needs of our students are greater due to the pandemic, but instead of seeing this as a challenge, we have an opportunity to ensure all students have access to high-quality materials,” Wynn said. “The pandemic has revealed new layers of instructional inequities. Teachers are trailblazers, and despite the circumstances, they continue to fight the good fight.High-quality materials reduce the stress of teachers being solely responsible for creating instructional materials for students.”

The pandemic added another challenge to this multi-year process, but MDE administrators have confidence that Mississippi’s students and teachers will reach a bar set even higher than before.

“You set high standards and expectations, teachers and students will meet those expectations,” Smith said. “If we set the bar high, then we are preparing our students to be lifelong learners that are ready for a college or career path.”

Marla Davis

Dr. Tenette Smith

Kristen Wynn