Curriculum, Standards & Pacing FAQ

Why does every teacher need a published curriculum?

Writing curriculum is a full-time job. Teaching is a full-time job. Asking teachers to do both at once is asking them to build the airplane while flying it. Professionally published curricula are higher quality, more consistent, and more rigorous than what any individual teacher can create from scratch during the school year.

What's wrong with teachers creating their own materials?

Research from EdReports shows that only about 20% of teacher-created or internet-sourced materials are at grade level. When teachers scrounge materials from Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers, the quality varies wildly and students end up doing below-grade-level work. Published curriculum solves this by investing far more time and expertise than any individual teacher can.

If two teachers teach the same course with different curricula, does it matter?

Those are completely different jobs. Curriculum determines what students actually learn. When we evaluate teachers as if curriculum doesn't matter, we're ignoring the biggest variable in student learning. We should assess students on what they were specifically taught and support teachers based on the curriculum they're actually using.

Why shouldn't we call published curriculum "scripted" or "boxed"?

Those are slurs we use to dismiss curriculum that's already been written. We don't call a math textbook "boxed math," but we disparage literacy and other curricula with these terms. Good curriculum is a starting point, not a straitjacket. Teachers can adapt and supplement it, but starting from scratch is a terrible place to be.

Should professional development be tied to the curriculum teachers actually use?

Absolutely. Generic PD that has nothing to do with what teachers are teaching is a huge missed opportunity. Curriculum-based professional development -- where teachers learn how to better teach the specific materials they use -- is far more valuable than one-size-fits-all workshops.

Why does every school need a pacing guide?

Without a pacing guide, every teacher independently decides what to cover and when. That's how students arrive at the next grade with wildly varying knowledge. Every kid who takes the same course should be exposed to the same essential content so the next teacher knows what they've been taught.

What if our pacing guide isn't very good?

There's a huge difference between thinking your pacing guide isn't very good and thinking it's a bad idea to have one. If the calendar doesn't have the right amount of time in the right places, fix it. Don't throw out the whole concept and leave every teacher to decide on their own what gets taught.

Do we need curriculum maps or lesson plans?

Curriculum maps, not lesson plans. If we've already articulated what teachers will teach and when, there's no reason to require them to retype that information into a lesson plan template every week. Principals aren't reading those plans anyway. A year-long scope and sequence is more useful than hundreds of weekly lesson plans.

Should every course K-12 have a published syllabus?

Yes. Colleges have posted syllabi online since the early internet. Parents deserve to know what their kids will learn in every class. When schools publish what students will read, what projects they'll complete, and what standards they'll meet, it builds trust and creates accountability that we desperately need.

Does how much we teach matter more than how we teach?

Yes. We obsess over instructional methods while ignoring the far more important question of how much content students actually cover. Quality is a property of stuff that actually happens -- content you never get to has zero quality. We need to push the quality-quantity tradeoff further toward quantity.

Is it possible to teach too fast?

There is a point of diminishing returns, but I don't think most classes are anywhere near it. The only place I see truly too-fast pacing is AP classes. In most other classes, we could teach significantly faster and students would learn more. The feeling of teaching too fast is not a reliable indicator that you actually are.

What's wrong with slowing down to ensure mastery before moving on?

When you slow down for mastery on early content, you sacrifice all exposure to later content. My supervisor's school tried requiring 80% mastery before moving on in math -- they only finished half the units and test scores tanked. The percent mastery of content you never teach at all is zero.

Where do academic gaps come from?

Learning is a compounding game. Knowledge sticks to knowledge -- vocabulary unlocks comprehension, comprehension fuels background knowledge, and background knowledge accelerates vocabulary acquisition. Small early gaps compound into massive ones over time. That's why coverage and pacing matter so much. Intervene early, because once a compounding gap opens, it's brutally hard to close.

Is knowledge really more important than skills?

Cognitive science has found that knowledge is what we think with. You can't think critically about something you know nothing about. The idea that students don't need facts because they can Google everything ignores that you need knowledge to even know what to search for. Skills require knowledge -- not the other way around.

Can we just teach students "how to learn" instead of specific content?

No. If you don't know anything, you don't know how to learn. The people who say "just teach them how to learn" aren't talking about cognitive science -- they're arguing that specific knowledge doesn't matter. But learning new things depends on already knowing related things. Knowledge is the Velcro that new information sticks to.

Is memorization a legitimate form of learning?

Yes. Memorization is learning. Somewhere along the way, we decided that memorizing something doesn't count. But committing facts to memory is the foundation that enables higher-order thinking. It's not the only kind of learning, but it's an important kind, and decades of anti-memorization rhetoric have left students without the factual knowledge they need.

Is knowledge the "surface level" we need to get past for deeper learning?

That metaphor is exactly backwards. Knowledge isn't the layer of dirt you dig through to find treasure. Knowledge is the foundation that makes higher-order thinking possible. Bloom's taxonomy isn't a ranking of importance -- it shows that knowledge is the base everything else is built on. Without it, there's nothing to think deeply about.

Can we teach critical thinking as a standalone skill?

No. Critical thinking is domain-specific, like muscle memory. Being a great critical thinker in science doesn't make you one in history. There's no general-purpose, teachable critical thinking skill that transfers across domains. Teaching a standalone "critical thinking class" is pointless -- it has to be embedded within specific subject content.

Can critical thinking protect students from misinformation?

Not by itself. A well-constructed argument built on false premises will pass every critical thinking test. You can say the earth is flat without committing a single logical fallacy. To inoculate students against misinformation, we have to give them true information. Knowledge is always king.

What's the real key to reading comprehension?

Background knowledge. We've had reading comprehension wrong for years -- we thought it was about skills and strategies like "find the main idea." But research by Willingham, Wexler, and others shows that comprehension depends on knowing about the topic you're reading about. No amount of strategy instruction compensates for lack of knowledge.

Why did science and social studies disappear from elementary schools?

No Child Left Behind. By testing only reading and math, we incentivized schools to cut science and social studies in favor of more test prep. The result was content-free reading instruction that actually made reading worse. Knowledge-building literacy curricula that teach science and social studies content are the fix, and they're finally gaining ground.

Is leveled reading a good idea?

No. It's deeply intuitive but misguided. When a below-grade-level reader only reads below-grade-level text, they never catch up. Timothy Shanahan's research shows that students grow more from engaging with challenging grade-level text with scaffolding than from reading easy text independently. Scaffold up, don't differentiate down.

Should kids read whole books in school?

Yes. Teaching only short passages and excerpts in the name of "skills practice" has replaced whole-book reading in many schools. But the idea that reading is a collection of skills you can practice independently of content is flawed. Students need the sustained engagement, knowledge-building, and stamina that come from reading entire books as a class.

Was balanced literacy a mistake?

Yes. It was adopted based on vibes, not evidence. Teachers loved the autonomy it gave them, but it doesn't actually work well -- lots of kids slip through the cracks. The science of reading, with its emphasis on systematic phonics and knowledge-building, has a far stronger evidence base. We need to stop making decisions based on enthusiasm and start making them based on research.

Is differentiated instruction realistic?

Not really. What we call differentiated instruction is actually asking one person to do multiple jobs simultaneously. If you're trying to teach at multiple levels in one class, you're not doing one person's job -- you're doing several. Good whole-class instruction with appropriate scaffolding serves students far better than fragmented differentiation.

Do all children learn differently?

No, and that's good news. Learning styles are a myth -- the research is clear on this. Everybody's brain works basically the same way, which means we can design learning experiences based on cognitive science that work for virtually everyone. The style of teaching needs to match the content, not the kid.

Is personalized learning better than whole-class instruction?

Don't assume so. Most students, when you individualize and say "it's all on you," simply do nothing. Look at online school dropout rates. The class is an incredible technology that gets kids to do 13,000 hours of academic work they wouldn't otherwise be motivated to do. A small minority of students may benefit from personalization, but most learn more in the social experience of a regular classroom.

Should students work at their own pace?

For most students, no. Self-pacing sounds great until you realize most kids won't do it. The unique contribution of the class is that it gets students to put in the time. Apps and AI tutors might be hypothetically more efficient, but only if students actually use them. The class has always worked because it provides the structure and social motivation most kids need.

Does mastery learning work?

It sounds great but often runs off the rails. Outside of math, most knowledge isn't strictly hierarchical -- there aren't rigid prerequisites. When we require 80% mastery before moving on in every subject, we create massive pacing problems and habitually cut off the last half of the curriculum. Ask yourself: is mastery of this content so crucial that it's worth never getting to the rest?

Should below-grade-level students always be taught below-grade-level content?

No. That's a trap. If below-grade-level students only get below-grade-level instruction, they never catch up -- they fall further behind every year. Students need access to grade-level content with scaffolding, plus intensive intervention support to close gaps. Meeting students where they are should never mean leaving them there permanently.

Are high expectations good even for kids who fail to meet them?

Absolutely. A student who attempts a challenging research paper and gets a D has gained something extremely valuable -- experience, skill, and the knowledge that someone believed they could do it. A student who's never expected to try gains nothing. Lowering expectations in the name of protecting feelings actually robs students of their chance to grow.

Is academic tracking a good idea?

Old-fashioned tracking -- splitting classes into "regular" and "honors" sections of the same course -- is generally a bad idea. Pulling out the top students shifts the center of gravity and makes the other section harder to teach. Some de facto tracking is inevitable at the high school level through course selection, but we should keep classes heterogeneous as long as possible and expand access to advanced coursework.

Should gifted programs be eliminated if they don't reflect student demographics?

No. Shutting down a program because of underrepresentation is precisely the wrong response. Fix the identification process, remove barriers to access, and expand the program. When Seattle tested all students during the school day instead of on Saturdays, representation improved. Zero opportunity is never more equitable than imperfect opportunity.

Should algebra be available in middle school?

Yes, and the hypocrisy on this issue is glaring. Education leaders who send their own kids to private schools that teach algebra in middle school while advocating to delay it for everyone else are revealing their true beliefs. If it's good for their kids, it's probably good for yours too. Equity means expanding access to rigorous coursework, not restricting it.

Are choice menus a good teaching practice?

They double the workload for teachers while making learning less likely. Students given a menu of options consistently choose the easiest one. Learning styles are a myth, so "student choice" doesn't match instruction to some unique learning need -- it just lets kids avoid the hard work. Design the best learning experience for the content and have everyone do it.

Is group work overused?

Yes. Group work has become the preferred default when it should be the exception. In most groups, one student does the work while others coast. If students are solving math problems, each individual needs to understand it -- collaboration doesn't produce individual understanding. Use group work selectively for tasks that genuinely require it, not as a daily routine.

Why do textbooks get such a bad rap?

Because they confront you with just how much there is to learn in a course. If you follow the textbook, there's no avoiding the content. Without one, it's easy to reduce content to something comfortable. We appreciate this in math -- nobody questions that you need a math textbook -- but in other subjects, we want a shortcut that bypasses the content. There isn't one.

Does math fact fluency really matter?

Yes. Having math facts memorized frees up cognitive resources for higher-level problem solving. Bloom's taxonomy isn't a ranking -- it's a foundation. Knowledge is at the bottom because everything else depends on it. Drill and practice sounds old-fashioned, but the underlying cognitive science hasn't changed. If students need phonics to read, they need math fact fluency to do math.

How do schools keep track of which standards are being taught across classrooms and grade levels?

Most schools don't — not in any systematic way. Teachers mark off pacing guides, principals spot-check during walkthroughs, and curriculum coordinators compile spreadsheets that are out of date before they're finished. The result is a school where nobody has a reliable picture of what students are actually learning versus what the scope and sequence says they should be.

Standards tracking needs to happen at the source: in the materials teachers are using and the observations leaders are making. When teachers can align their work to specific standards and leaders can see that data across classrooms, the curriculum coordination problem becomes solvable. Without that infrastructure, alignment is managed through conversations and guesswork.

CAIRO ERP provides the standards infrastructure for K–12 schools — a complete database of state standards across all subjects and grade levels, with tools for aligning instructional materials, tracking coverage, and identifying gaps. Built by The Principal Center, it gives curriculum teams and school leaders a single source of truth for standards alignment across the organization.