Dive Brief:
- New York City teachers are reporting that lessons in the new Pearson reading and writing textbooks—recommended by the city's education department and delivered well into the school year—are "loaded with errors."
- To be more specific, teachers say the Common Core-based lessons are poorly planned, too long and full of mistakes, with one third-grade workbook page, for example, asking students about another reading entirely.
- Other errors: A kindergarten workbook page is printed upside down and some teachers' manuals don't match student texts.
Dive Insight:
Beyond the errors, everyone seems to be passing the blame in this situation. City education officials say that teachers might be having problems because the materials are new. As for the delivery delays, Pearson pointed to the distributor—which, for what it's worth, is a better argument than what the city provided for teachers' issues with the material—with spokeswoman Susan Aspey adding that it "was always intended to be a rolling implementation." At the very least, it seems like there might be some communication issues here. We also can't imagine this making the Common Core look much better to its detractors.
