As more and more states have adopted Common Core in recent years, teachers have needed aligned materials and curriculum. Many schools and districts have evaluated traditional privately-created curriculum which claim to align with Common Core and have not liked what they found. As a result, some schools and districts are turning to options such as EngageNY, an open source option created by four different vendors for the state of New York.
Open source, an increasingly popular option in the world of education, allows anyone around the world to have free access to the materials. The four vendors who created the materials, Expeditionary Learning, a New York City nonprofit; Great Minds, a nonprofit based in Washington; PCG Education, a Boston for-profit; and the Core Knowledge Foundation, a Charlottesville, Va. nonprofit, were paid a combined $36.6 million through New York’s Race to the Top grant funds to develop curriculum modules.
Many education companies were and are skeptical of this open source model, but some are adjusting to its setup and finding alternate ways to make money, regardless. For example, those four companies are offering enhanced versions of the materials they created (e.g., through interactive technology) for a price. Interestingly, the open source model also means that any other person or company could take those same base materials and enhance them to be sold for a profit as well.
The jury is still out on the long-term viability of the open source model, but it certainly offers teachers around the nation with more free options as they seek to provide their students with the best Common Core aligned curriculum available.
Engage NY materials are available at the following URL: https://www.engageny.org/ccss-library
For more information, please visit:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/06/10/ny-open-education-effort-draws-users-nationwide.html
