FutureEd has published a piece about how changes to curriculum and instruction in DC have made a difference:
During five and a half years as chief of teaching and learning at the District of Columbia Public Schools, Brian Pick led one of the nation’s most comprehensive—and successful—overhauls of a school district instructional system. Pick introduced new standards, new curriculum materials, new assessments, new teaching strategies, and an innovative school-based professional development system that turned schools into adult learning communities. And the Princeton graduate who started his career in public education as an elementary school teacher through Teach for America built a new infrastructure in the DCPS central office to support the new initiatives.
The work has paid substantial dividends. Recently, the district released its 2019 PARCC standardized test results and scores were up for every major racial group at every grade level in reading and at nearly every grade in math. It was the fourth consecutive year of PARCC gains in what was a decade ago one of the worst-performing districts in the nation.
In the interview at the link below, Pick explains how the district invested in three major buckets: 1) high-quality curriculum resources combined with formative assessments for every subject at every grade level, 2) a school-based professional-learning model, and 3) partnerships with external organizations to provide real-world student experiences.
For more, see: https://www.future-ed.org/rethinking-what-and-how-45000-students-learn/
