May 21, 2000

TEXTBOOKS ON THE SAME PAGE As school districts across the state struggle to improve their results on the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests, they're beginning to discover that it helps if everyone's on the same page - of the same textbook, that is.

Greater standardization, especially in the early elementary years, can help students who have to change schools. That's a particular problem in districts like Denver that have high mobility rates. Children who move frequently are likely to be at risk for other reasons as well, and being yanked from phonics to whole language to balanced literacy does nothing to improve their chances of success.

But it's also useful for teachers and administrators deciding on staff development. They can invest time and resources in learning to make the most effective use of a textbook series knowing their training will be broadly useful across the district.

One risk, of course, is that a district will make a disastrous choice in a fundamental subject like reading or math and then every school in the district will be stuck with it for years until they can afford to buy new books. But the lengthy and bureaucratic adoption process in most large districts tends to favor safe, mainstream choices. That tendency works against both trendy but unproven series (like MathLand and Everyday Math) and effective but unfashionable ones (like Saxon math).

Schools with distinctive missions will need flexibility in the choice of books as in other matters; Core Knowledge schools, for example, rely on textbooks aligned with the schools' educational philosophy. And where schools are already extremely successful -- whether it's because of what they are doing right or because of fortunate demographics -- making them conform is probably counterproductive.

But otherwise, uniformity appears to bring genuine benefits. The Pueblo City school district, whose results on CSAP are the envy of many other districts, has settled on Macmillan/McGraw Hill, Spotlight on Literacy, for 18 of its 21 elementary schools. The remaining three, which use Scholastic's Literacy Place, are all above average, said Dorothy Buksar, director of instruction.

Choosing common textbooks isn't all Pueblo does to improve achievement, Buksar warns. Quality of teaching makes the most difference, she says, and the district also uses the Lindamood-Bell literacy process, which focuses on frequent diagnostic tests and targeted intervention based on the results.

Nevertheless, they're sufficiently convinced of the benefits of common texts to extend the practice. The elementary schools also use a common math series, Harcourt Brace, and this year "we're going for common" in the middle schools, Buksar said.

Aurora has just adopted a districtwide language-arts series, Houghton Mifflin's Invitations to Literacy. "With more and more transients, it's more and more critical," said Joan Ott, director of instructional services. In past years, she said, schools had been more individual but now curriculum is much more standard across the district.

Aurora uses Houghton Mifflin's math series, adopted in 1994, "but we're not as happy with it as we thought we would be," Ott said. "Teachers have to do too much supplementing." The district will look at math texts again in a year or two.

Denver, whose CSAP scores are definitely not enviable, has begun moving in the same direction. The board will shortly consider a proposal to reduce the number of approved textbooks, and make it more likely that schools will buy from the approved list in the adoption year for a particular subject.

But the adoption cycle is so long that the proposal, if adopted, will take years to implement fully. This year, the district is considering books for social studies and middle school reading. New science textbooks are due to be bought a year from now. Elementary reading texts will come some time after that, and math books, which were adopted only the year before last, are even further out.

"The textbook is not the curriculum," said Carla Santorno, executive director of educational services for DPS. The board is in the process of adopting a detailed curriculum that lays out exactly what skills and knowledge students are expected to acquire in each grade. In the future, textbooks to be considered for adoption will be judged against that curriculum.

At present, though, schools have a wide choice. There are four English-language reading series on the approved list. About half of Denver schools use Houghton Mifflin, and 20 percent Macmillan/McGraw Hill. They're popular, Santorno says, because they have Spanish-language equivalents. About 10 percent use Scholastic, and 10 percent Scott Foresman's Celebrate Reading. There are two additional K-2 series in each of English and Spanish, four of supplemental materials and two specifically for phonics.

In math, about 40 percent each use Houghton Mifflin or Addison Wesley/Scott Foresman, and the balance is divided among MathLand, Mimosa and Everyday Math.

Santorno said the district had found no significant differences in student achievement related to which textbooks schools used. Yet with Denver's fluid population, just the fact that there are so many can be a significant impediment to student success.

Narrowing those choices, however, would mean a significant turn away from the philosophy of site-based management, which is still paramount in Denver.

How far it should continue to be is a question the Denver board should consider as it begins its search for a new superintendent.

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