Alexis Gentry and Eric Hirsch discuss big moments from EdReports’ 2024, like the exciting updates to our review tools, including tighter alignment with the science of reading in English language arts and major expansions to how we evaluate supports for multilingual learners. They also reflect on the latest State of the Market report, which revealed that more than half of teachers still lack regular access to quality curriculum. Looking ahead to 2025, Eric also shares how EdReports is ramping up for the first K–12 reviews using our revised tools as well as our first ever reviews of pre-K materials.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Alexis Gentry   00:07

Hi, I’m Alexis Gentry filling in for Jess Barrow, and this is the EdVoices Podcast. This is our final episode of 2024 we’re looking back, we’re reflecting on the year. And who better to do that with than our executive director Eric Hirsch? Eric, thank you so much for being back on the pod with us.

Eric Hirsch   00:24

Thanks, Alexis, so much for having me. I’m always amazed when I get invited back when I’ve been somewhere. So very much appreciate it.

Alexis Gentry   00:32

Basically, today, we just kind of want to look back. You know, I feel like this has been a wild year for so many reasons, you know, both for our org and just for the world. But you know, starting out, what are some things that we have achieved this year that you are really proud of? What has really stood out for you?

Eric Hirsch   00:49

That’s such a good question, because there are a lot of things, I think. I also always take a step back. We put out this year our ninth anniversary message, and we are heading into our decade year. And so as I think back, I always start with: we published a lot of reviews. We continue to impact more and more students as the uptake of using our reviews—as a place to start as districts and states start to think about high quality instructional materials—has been great. 

But I also think about how much more we need to do, because one of the things we did this year is yet again, publish our State of the Market report, and while we found about half of the materials that are out there are now standards aligned—which is a far cry from when we first started—that we’re still only looking at about a third of ELA teachers using materials on a regular basis, which is only once per week, half of math educators and barely a handful of science. So we have our work set out for us. 

As I think about this year and this year’s contribution, it really gets into reflecting on our tools and how we can do better. We always say, as you know, Alexis, our best report has yet to be written. And so what we really spent a lot of this year doing is really interrogating the evidence base behind some of our reviews, really working with advisories, doing, oh my gosh, hundreds of listening and learning tours, revitalizing so many of our advisories so that we can publish, just last week, our [version] 2.0 tools. 

So in math, ELA, and science, we’ve really gone, looked at them, and updated them. In particular science, continuing to really reflect on three dimensionality. We’ve really looked at the connection with the Math Practices in mathematics, and ELA is where we did the most work. It started mid year when we updated our foundational skills tool to make sure we really incorporated more elements of structured literacy. We looked at science of reading laws, looked at what we needed to do, and created some new indicators, really bolstered our look at phonics, looking at systematic and explicit teaching of foundational skills, and really looking to make sure we are evaluating whether any three cueing practices are there. 

And in ELA, our tools build off of the release of our new foundational skills tool that we put out earlier this summer. We really looked to catch up to the evidence around structured literacy that weren’t there when the original state college and career standards were published and our tools came out. So we’ve really bolstered instruction around phonics. Now we look for the presence of any three cueing, report on it, and it’s a non-negotiable that it cannot be present to move forward. And we’ve integrated that into our core comprehensive tool, where we’ve also really put a focus on knowledge building. Instead of having a single gateway, we’ve really looked at comprehension throughout and we’ve really started to attend to the amount of information in some of these large, massive ELA programs. 

The last thing we’ve done, across all tools, is that we learned from our pilot of multilingual learner (MLL) reviews that we did in math back in 2022 and that we had piloted all throughout 2023 and into this year, and we are excited that now we will be reviewing specifically with indicators for MLLs as part of that 2.0 tool.

Alexis Gentry   05:02

Yeah, I think one of the things I love the most about EdReports is that we are such an evolving organization, and I feel like every year, we expand, we do more, we learn more, and we apply that learning to our work. And that’s just something that I’ve always loved about working here. So kind of on that note, what are some lessons that we learned this year? Maybe some things that, you know surprised you, or something you didn’t expect, but that you’re like, wow, okay, we observed that this year, and we’re going to put that into our work for next year.

Eric Hirsch   05:34

Well, I mean, as we have a conversation now in November, Alexis, I mean, nothing has come up at all as we think about the election, the impact on curriculum. There’s a lot still to be determined. I think for our reflection, I think one of the things, as you know, we’ve done is really work to refine our internal and external strategy. And one of the things we realized we could get better at was being more agile and nimble in response to the marketplace of instructional material. 

And so I think one of our reflections as we’ve looked at some of these science of reading laws, as we’ve looked at AI, as we look at innovations coming down the pike, which is: how are we really continuing to learn? Build those into our review criteria. So we’re really proud of 2.0 but we need to be thinking about 2.1 and 3.0 at the same time, and I think our reflection is we have to figure out a way to both keep doing the high-quality, calibrated educator led reviews we’re doing, and at the same time learn from educators, from districts, from states to make sure our reports are as responsive as they can be. 

And I feel really good about some of the investments we’ve made and some of the prioritization we’ve done that will hopefully really allow for that. I think the other thing too, as I reflect on the year, we have been doing some research around instructional coherence, and I think that is something that has really come up this year that I’m excited for for the future. We review core instructional materials, but we know more and more districts, particularly during ESSER, had been investing in supplements, and we know we need to accelerate learning for kids, and think about the connection between supplementals and core materials to make sure we’re catching all kids up so that they can have grade level content. 

But, at the same time, when you have supplements, core materials, and such—as we always have had—a diversity around where kids are relative to those grade level standards, how that comes together in instruction and for teachers and within the materials, is something really important that we’ve explored as well.

Alexis Gentry   08:10

I think that’s really valuable. What are some other things that you’ve really reflected on in 2024?

Eric Hirsch   08:17

I think it’s how some messages we’ve been saying from the get-go have really started to resonate, and we’ve been able to continue to make that drum beat louder and louder. I think one of the things we continue to say is green does not necessarily mean go. While we are so proud of the work we’ve done, we know [our reports are only] a place to start. 

We’ve always done this with educators to try to provide information, to empower local schools, districts and states to help ensure there’s information as they do the hard work about thinking about what materials make sense for them, and we have always known that how you choose matters to whether it’s used, and that our information can really help in that endeavor. 

So we’ve had the opportunity between this wonderful podcast, some other thought leadership pieces, to really put that out. The other thing that we’ve been excited about is how much the conversation about curriculum-based professional learning has really started to accelerate. We put out a piece in The 74, Evan Stone and I, and did a podcast where we talked about how curriculum is necessary, but it isn’t sufficient to change instructional practice. 

Curriculum is a resource. We know curriculum doesn’t teach kids, teachers do. And making sure that when districts select and consider, they’re really thinking about: that’s just the starting point you need to budget and plan for implementation and ongoing support. And we hope the evidence helps them choose wisely, but we know that the choice [of curriculum] is the starting point, it’s not the ending point. 

And so much work needs to be done, and I’m glad we’ve been part of a cacophony of voices, a chorus, if you will, of folks really starting to sing about the importance of: teachers don’t change because you give them a new curriculum or change their practice. They change because of ongoing, hard support to tie those resources into instructional practices through strong curriculum-based professional learning. 

Alexis Gentry   10:30

So looking forward 2025, and beyond, what is on the horizon for EdReports? What are you most excited about moving forward, and what’s coming up for us as an org?

Eric Hirsch   10:43

Such a great question. I mentioned the 2.0 tools, being really proud of what we’ve done with really adding, again, this continually evolving evidence base to our tools and our criteria. There’s so much more in implementing, right? We develop our evidence guides, we train up educators, and so 2025 will have our first reviews using those, and that means really making sure the experience on the website is fantastic with these tools. 

So I’m just really excited to take some of what we did in 2024 and see the fruits in 2025. I’m also really excited that in 2025 folks will really start to see our pre-K work, that we launched in 2024, accelerate. We are so excited. We know getting all kids off to a strong start is essential, as we think about K–12. So we’ve really built off of the National Academy’s consensus-based report. We’ve been pulling together educators and work. We’re working on the tool now. So in 2025, we can’t wait to start reviewing and thinking about reviews for pre-K. 

And finally, I think we’re thinking a lot about how all these pieces come together for districts. One of the conversations we continue to hear from districts and states is around instructional coherence. How do I put together these core materials you’re reviewing with some of the supplementals? Because we’ve seen a real exponential increase in the purchasing of supplementals. 

How does that come together in a coherent way for students and teachers as they start to think about accelerating their learning and making sure we’re getting grade level content for everyone? So that’s really on the horizon as we think about our thought leadership, what we put in our reviews, how these pieces come together for those who are utilizing curriculum.

Alexis   12:43

Absolutely. Well, it’s really exciting. I think, you know, EdReports is always there to serve educators and to try to make sure that students all have good materials. So I feel like this is, you know, with all of those things in mind, it’s the way that we evolve every year is just sort of, how are we going to do that, and how are we going to do that better every year. So that’s something that I’m really excited about, too.

Eric Hirsch   13:04

I’m so glad, and I think that’s right, when you do something that is so weedy, like work with hundreds of educators looking at many criteria and calibrating across—and we’ve now put out well over 1100 reviews. There’s so much to continue to learn and get better at, and at the same time, there’s so much innovation in the curriculum space that we have to be prepared to be able to evaluate and make changes to be able to keep up with those responses. And that is kind of the evergreen challenge of EdReports. How can we keep going with what we do and continue to do better as our learning in the field evolves? And we’ll keep trying!

Alexis Gentry   13:52

Yep, we will! We’re going to do everything we can. Well, Eric, thank you so much for being here and for doing this. I think there’s just so much to be excited about with EdReports moving forward. And I really cannot wait to see all the things we accomplish next year. And hopefully next year we will be able to meet again and do this and talk about all the great things we accomplished in 2025 so I think it’s gonna be really great.

Eric Hirsch   14:16

Absolutely, and it’s because of contributions from you, from all the EdReporters that work with us, and the hundreds of educators who are actually doing the really hard work of utilizing those tools, gathering evidence and putting up this information that can benefit their colleagues, schools, districts, and states.

Alexis Gentry   14:37

Absolutely. Huge shout out to all of the reviewers. I mean, the work they do is so, so valuable to us, and also just to the materials market, to schools across the country, tremendous, tremendous contributions that they’re making. So, absolutely appreciate all of them. All right. Thank you so much.

And this is our final episode of the year, like I said, and we will see you next year for more EdVoices podcast, more exciting EdReports news, lots more good stuff to come. So stay tuned to this space. Catch us on your podcast apps, follow us on YouTube. We are on Bluesky as well now, and Threads, lots of places to connect with EdReports, and we look forward to connecting with you in 2025 and beyond.