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In May 2023, New York City Public Schools announced their curriculum plan, requiring elementary schools to select from three reading curricula: Into Reading, Wit & Wisdom and EL Education. 15 of the 32 districts (roughly 350 elementary schools) were required to begin new curriculum implementation in September 2023, and the others will follow suit in 2024. According to the NYC Department of Education website, “Districts participating in Phase 1 are all districts that have already widely adopted one of the three curricular options. The Division of School Leadership met with superintendents one-on-one to discuss this new policy and superintendents opted in to participate in this phase of the rollout. The 17 districts in Phase 2 will “learn to launch” during school year 2023-24, with full implementation in school year 2024-25. (NYC Reads, n.d.)

Why is this newsworthy? NYC Public Schools was one of the largest districts in our nation to use Units of Study and balanced literacy approach; in fact, they began implementing a balanced literacy approach in 2003. That means that for 20 years, their schools (and teachers) have been using an approach to reading instruction that is not grounded in evidence-based research, leading to poor reading outcomes, specifically for particular subgroups with less than 37% of students reading proficiently (compared to roughly 50% overall).

This was an important and needed change. A balanced literacy approach does not provide the instruction that all students require to become proficient readers. Rather, schools and districts will benefit from using a systematic approach (such as structured literacy) grounded in the science of reading. And in a system as large as NYC Public Schools, selecting a curriculum as part of that process was necessary for reasons we will get into. “Top Education Department officials have said there was little time to waste.” (Zimmerman, 2023) But how much instructional time is being wasted now?

To be fair, there is a lot that NYC Public Schools is doing well. Here is my list of 10 celebrations:

1. While the system narrowed the list of curricula, they then allowed districts to choose within that list in an effort to respect district leadership’s tradition of decision-making power.
2. This narrowed list of curriculum focus also allows the system to increase capacity for deployment of resources including training.
3. The system referred to EdReports, a reviewing tool aligned to the Common Core State Standards. This tool includes some important elements, analyzing core instruction, foundational skills for k-2 and building knowledge.
4. The system has made clear it is focused on providing phonics instruction to students.
5. A system-wide plan for curriculum and aligned system pacing guide supports transient students who are more apt to miss skills when schools are not covering instruction in the same sequence or approach.
6. The system planned to pay teachers for summer training and additional training throughout the implementation year.
7. The system provides individualized support through coaching contracts and planning meetings in which they troubleshoot upcoming lesson plans with a coach/facilitator.
8. The system is screening children’s literacy skills using Acadience Reading, an assessment tool that measures skills aligned to the Science of Reading and screens children for dyslexia risk-factors.
9. Providing a curriculum is intended to provide teachers enough integrated resources so that teachers aren’t required to “cobble together” resources for instruction.
10. The system conducted a formal review of multiple curricula in 2021-2022 before moving into this plan.

In our education systems, there are often four pieces of the puzzle at play: people, process, product, and culture. When I applied my systems-lens perspective to this implementation plan, I noticed there are some barriers to their success, leaving me with questions. Let’s unpack them below.

PEOPLE

1. There are 200 coaches currently working with approximately 350 elementary schools. As of November 27th in the latest Chalkbeat article, “all teachers have received one coaching session.” (Zimmerman, 2023) While the intent of offering individual support through coaches is admirable, they are facing a large capacity issue. In the current year, there are not enough coaches for each school to have the implementation support needed for success and as the system adds the rest of the elementary schools to total 700 next year, capacity will be stretched even further. What is the system’s plan to address this capacity issue?
2. According to the NYC Independent Budget Office’s September 2023 Roll Call Report (Konrad & Roy, 2023), “the median experience level of a general education teacher rose from 11.2 to 13.1 years” from the 2015-2016 to 2022-2023 school years. That means that for the majority of these teachers’ careers, they’ve been teaching using a balanced literacy approach. Teachers are making a massive shift and possibly becoming aware of major gaps in their own professional knowledge in literacy instruction. How is the system supporting teachers’ shift from balanced literacy to structured literacy?

PROCESS

1. This process began in the 2021-2022 school year with a formal review and Acadience Reading assessment use began in the 2022-2023 school year. This system could have been working on building teacher professional knowledge during this time before a curriculum announcement was made with limited time before the summer break. Doing so may have better prepared teachers for making this “seismic” shift. (Zimmer et al., 2023) What can the system learn from this to support the districts in Phase 2 and start early with their training?
2. Training opportunities highlight the capacity issue again - summer training covered the logistics of curricular materials but not instructional approaches, and ongoing training to support phonics instruction fill up too quickly for those trying to participate. Even with the support of planning meetings twice per month, teachers feel underprepared. Is the system teaching teachers how to plan using curriculum? Resource: “Teaching our curriculum will require a different kind of planning than you may be used to.” (EL Education, n.d.)
3. The coaching process highlighted in the latest Chalkbeat article is as follows: “A coach observed one of her lessons, but there wasn’t time for feedback.” THIS IS NOT COACHING. This is a visit with no feedback. At a minimum, coaching should involve a cycle with a planning meeting, visit, and debrief. If this experience “counts” as one of the coaching experiences teachers can expect to receive, system leaders will not see instructional improvements as a result. If the system believes in coaching, how are they making time and matching capacity to provide it?

PRODUCT

1. Acadience Reading is a starting point. It helps to identify who is at-risk and document progress with students. In addition, teachers will need formative assessments and diagnostic assessments as well as progress monitoring assessments to have the data needed to inform instruction. There is also a drastic difference between the running record assessments that are a hallmark of balanced literacy and skills-based assessments; this change in assessment requires a mindset shift, leaving some teachers to feel that they don’t know what “level” their students are. What is the system’s long-term assessment plan?
2. EdReports is not the only review tool available anymore. The process is educator-led which is an important lens to consider when choosing curricula - we want educators to share the alignment to standards and the feasibility of use. However, the educators reviewing for EdReports are not guaranteed to know NYC Public Schools’ story or context, and may be missing key points to implementation success. EdReports determines alignment to Common Core State Standards and NYC adopted Next Generation ELA standards in 2017 - how closely aligned are the EdReports reviews then? The system touted focusing on knowledge-building as an important criteria for the three curricula that made the cut. However, Into Reading is NOT listed on the Knowledge Matters Campaign website. How might expanding the review system to include the Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines (The Reading League, 2023) and The Knowledge Matters Review Tool (The Knowledge Matters Campaign, 2023) be more comprehensive?

CULTURE

There are a number of teacher quotes in the Chalkbeat articles naming current culture issues. Here are a few:

1. “I feel like I’m not really sure how much they’re loving reading.” This is a hallmark statement from a teacher who has taught balanced literacy for years. This teacher has yet to understand that learning to read is challenging but it can be joyful and fun, even when you’re teaching phonics. Have the system prepared teachers for how this will feel, when it felt SO GOOD to believe we were teaching children to love reading?
2. “The general sentiment at my school is we’re being asked to start something without really knowing what it should look like.” This was part of the system’s plan - they knew they would be building the plane while flying it. If that’s true, the plan could be adjusted to match expectations to the sentiment of this statement - we know the urgency of the matter. But expecting teachers to implement everything at once will make them “masters of none” while asking them to show student gains at the same time - an almost impossible feat. How can the system adjust expectations incrementally to match our implementation plan?

NYC Public Schools is trying. After years of using an approach and curriculum that wasn’t teaching children to read, they are making the changes necessary to impact literacy outcomes. But, they may not have considered how ignoring the people and culture pieces in their puzzle impacts their process and products and therefore their overall outcomes. The puzzle remains unfinished.

Leadership Moves:

1. Taking messy action is better than doing nothing, especially if it supports improved outcomes for children.
2. Don’t forget to consider all four categories in your system: people, processes, products and culture.
3. Use this case study for learning about your own system - what can you take away from this reading?

What does this mean for me?

Your system has four broad categories, whether you’re thinking about them or not. And each piece of that puzzle impacts the other. Your people and culture impact how well your products and culture will work. So thinking about all four parts will maximize your success plan. If you’ve been ignoring a piece to your system puzzle so far, that may be the first section you want to check on in my new self-assessment resources.

Note: This month’s newsletter was inspired by Chalkbeat’s coverage of the NYC Public Schools curriculum mandate. Each of those articles are linked below. A giant thank you to this nonprofit news organization for covering education news.

1. ​NYC forces elementary schools to use one of three reading programs in massive literacy push​
2. ​In a seismic shift, NYC to mandate elementary schools use phonics-based curriculum​
3. ​How is NYC’s literacy curriculum mandate going? Teachers feel unprepared.​

Where have we been?

I've been working on two free resources that can help leaders begin to analyze their systems in literacy and coaching, using the categories I applied in the case study above! Because you're a newsletter subscriber, I'm giving you the first opportunity to download them! ​​

Coaching System Assessment Download the PDF below ​LRC Coaching System Assessment PDF - Final.pdf​

Literacy System Assessment Download the PDF below ​​LRC Literacy System Assessment PDF - Final.pdf​​

These beautiful assessments were designed by Leanne Knight of Authentic Vision Media. I highly recommend giving her a follow on Instagram or LinkedIn & visiting her website.

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