Why use a Culturally Responsive Education Curriculum Review at MVYPS?

Across the country, rigorous evaluations and students have shown that culturally responsive curricular increase student academic engagement, attendance, grade point averages, graduation rates, civic engagement, positive racial self-images, and self-definitions (see here for references). CRE is essential for students of color, and also has a positive impact on White students and their ability to think critically (Laird, 2005). Not only does CRE impact students' academic experiences, but it can also have significant influence on racial attitudes and biases, and provide the cognitive tools needed to critique institutional racism (Garth-McCullough, 2008).

[Bryan-Gooden, et al., 2023, p. 8]

Why now?

In 2023, via a tiered focused monitoring process, MVYPS was sited by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for CR 24-Curriculum Review based on the following reason. 

"A review of documents and staff interviews indicated that although the district has provided teachers with training on culturally responsive practices, the district does not ensure that individual teachers review all educational materials for simplistic and demeaning generalizations, lacking intellectual merit, on the basis of race, color, sex, gender identity, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation. Furthermore, the district does not ensure that teachers provide balance and context for any stereotypes that may be depicted in learning materials."

As a result, MVYPS must commit to "review all aspects of its K-12 program to ensure that individual teachers have a means to and understand how to review all educational materials" for the purposes listed above so that "[teachers] will be able to understand and ensure that they are providing balance and context if any stereotypes are depicted in learning materials in the classroom." MVYPS also must ensure that "appropriate activities, discussions, and/or supplementary materials are used to provide balance and context for any such stereotypes depicted in the materials." Evidence of this practice will include (a) internal monitoring procedures, protocols, and tools; (b) administrator and teacher training materials, agenda, and signed attendance sheets; and (c) samples of completed internal monitoring logs. This evidence is due to DESE by 8/31/24.

In addition to the TFM results, MVYPS is committed to engaging in more equitable practices and learning of the opportunities that exist in programming, policy development, and its other practices. Therefore, MVYPS has been working with the Mid Atlantic Equity Consortium to conduct equity audits in its schools as an initial step to developing a longer term plan for establishing its system as equitable for its students and staff.

Last, it is under the current Superintendent of Schools, Richard M. Smith, Ed.D., that MVYPS is focusing on the following and related commitments.

• A system-wide Commitment to Our Children

• A Commitment to Nurturing Culture Within Our Schools

• A Commitment to a Strong School Community Approach

Ensuring that we are using culturally responsive and representative curricula in meeting these commitments is paramount for our school system. Learning a new tool to use in our curriculum review practice is one step towards achieving these commitments. 

What is Culturally Responsive Education (CRE)?

Culturally responsive education (closely related to the terms "culturally relevant" and "culturally sustaining" education) refers to the combination of teaching, pedagogy, curriculum, theories, attitudes, practices, and instructional materials that center students' culture, identities, and contexts throughout educational systems. Gloria Ladson-Billings and Geneva Gay's scholarship is foundational to culturally responsive education. Some key principles of cultural responsive education (CRE) include (1) validating students' experiences and values, (2) disrupting power dynamics that privilege dominant groups, and (3) empowering students. NYU Metro Center's report Culturally Responsive Education: A Primer for Policy and Practice more fully details the origins, significance, and impact of CRE in schools.

[Bryan-Gooden, et al., 2023, p. 8]

If you are interested in what culturally responsive teaching in Massachusetts looks like, please refer to the MA DESE rubric and video library here.

Culture Beyond Race and Ethnicity

While examining the ways that race and ethnicity are represented in the curriculum is important, it is equally important to consider how other aspects of culture are integrated into curricula as well. Other aspects of culture can include: language, gender, ability, religion, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, age, and geographic location. Furthermore, the intersection between important identities, such as being both Black and immigrant or both Latina and disabled, can reveal unique cultural experiences that may not be present for people who share only one aspect of those identities. CRE literature and countless studies about the impact of culture in the classroom continue to support the important role that cultural relevance can play in learning, in curriculum, and in relationships at schools. 

[Bryan-Gooden, et al., 2023, p. 9]

What is Curriculum?

People use the word “curriculum” to mean very different things. In this context, curriculum means the detailed package of learning goals; units and lessons that lay out what teachers teach each day and week; assignments, activities and projects given to students; and books, materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in the class. Curriculum can take the form of a textbook and teacher’s manual bought from a publisher, a notebook of lesson plans pulled together from various sources, or a reading list with a packet of matching activities created by teachers. Curriculum is different from a syllabus, which is an outline of the topics covered in the class; a booklist, which is a list of readings without activities; and standards, which are the expectations for what students should know at each grade level. Standards are what students should know and be able to do, and curriculum lays out how students will learn to do it.

Curriculum is a key component of culturally responsive teaching, as it is filled with stories, activities, assignments, and illustrations that influence how young people understand the world, and contribute to centering and normalizing people, cultures, and values. Curricular that only reflect the lives of dominant populations- for example, White people and culture, nuclear families, or able-bodied people- reinforce ideas that sideline students of color, linguistically diverse students, single parent/multi-generation/LGBTQ+ led families, and students with disabilities. 

We will be looking at curriculum resources and materials in this review. Some examples of curricular materials include textbooks and the accompanying teachers' manual, a notebook of handouts, a textbook or a book list with matching activities. While textbooks are largely static and not responsive to students in ways that teachers can be, textbooks can provide opportunities and resources for teachers to utilize culturally responsive practices. This tool provides a way for teachers and stakeholders to assess the extent to which their curriculum provides these opportunities. 

Curricular Materials:

• Textbooks

• Lesson Plans

• Stories/Books

• Worksheets and Homework Assignments

• Teacher's Manuals

• Media/Videos

• Tests

• Class Activities

[adapted from Bryan-Gooden, et al., 2023, p. 10]

How will we Review the Curriculum?

MVYPS leaders have developed a guided process based on The Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative (EJ-ROC) out of NYU Steinhardt School. The tool that we will use is called the Culturally Responsive Education Scorecard. While the tool is designed to be used with a team of diverse representatives (teachers, students, community members, etc.), we are starting this year by getting familiar with the process of reviewing our curriculum materials for cultural representation and bias. The Scorecard has four sections.

• Representation- The Representation section helps you determine the extent to which students in your school are reflected in their curriculum, and the extent to which they are being exposed to a diverse group of authors, characters, identities, and cultures. Representation can sometimes be just a token gesture putting non-White or female characters in the place of White male characters. This numerical representation coupled with deeper indicators of representation provides the first layer of CRE analysis.

Character and Author Tally- This section of the scorecard captures the representation of characters from specific cultures. Use the tally to count the symbolic representation of characters and authors by race, gender, and ability. Refer to this tally to help you determine your level of satisfaction in the Representation section of the scorecard. We will use tally the types of people in each image by race, gender, and ability to assess for frequency of representation. 

Diversity of Characters- This section looks at how diverse people and cultures are portrayed in the curriculum specifically the extent to which people of different cultures, skin tones, abilities, etcetera are central to a story. 

Accurate Portrayals- This section looks at the extent to which characters accurately reflect the histories and experiences of their cultures. Culturally responsive curriculum will position characters as multi-dimensional and portray characters in non-stereotypical ways.

• Social Justice- The Social Justice section is divided into three categories, each of which contribute to understanding the opportunities that curricula provide for cultural responsiveness.

Decolonization, Power, & Privilege- This section focuses on understanding relationships among people, worldviews, resources, ideas, and power dynamics. Historically, public school curricula reflected Eurocentric ideas and culture, while the contributions and philosophies of other groups were excluded, minimized, misrepresented, or relegated to a small portion of the curricula. A culturally responsive curriculum centers sources of knowledge, experiences, and stories of diverse groups of people. 

Centering Multiple Perspectives- Centering multiple perspectives means affirming, valuing, and sustaining the worldviews of historically underrepresented peoples as the central focus in educational materials or curricula. 

Connect Learning to Real Life & Action-  One of the most essential components of CRE is connecting or relating learning to students’ real life experiences, communities, and cultures. Culturally responsive curricula should encourage students to connect to experiences beyond their own, examine their own perspective and privilege, and develop a critical consciousness about systems of oppression in order to take action against them.

• Teacher’s Materials- For this section, review all the teacher’s materials for the curriculum you selected. This means that you may have more than one section to review– a Teacher’s Manual for the curriculum overall as well as any teacher guidance within the individual units or lesson plans. Since many teachers do not receive training on culturally responsive teaching strategies, curricula should provide teachers with guidance on how to approach, enhance, and customize lessons for their student populations.

The Process:

1. Choose the grade(s), unit(s), and lesson(s) to analyze.
   Curricula can be thousands of pages, so you will need to select a sample of the larger curricula. We are suggesting a unit you taught this year, a textbook you base your year's curriculum on, a program you use in teaching, etc. Please make sure that this is a digestible and achievable set of resources to review for this first round of CR Curriculum Review. We will continue this work moving ahead and communicate a larger curriculum review plan for 2024-2025 and beyond.

If you teach in a grade level team or share a specific curriculum in a content area, you may work as a team. For example, teachers who share a common textbook might gather and look at the textbook together using the scorecard. Or, grade level teams might look at a literacy curriculum. Health teachers might take a Michigan Model unit and look at it together. This does not have to be done in isolation, but it can be if you want to look at a unit you personally implement in your class.

NOTE: The units you choose should not focus specifically on diversity and multiculturalism; they should be typical units. For history and social studies, that may seem a challenge because of the nature of your content area. Consider how you are reviewing the materials and not the specific topics in your unit. 

2. Access the Scorecards for your content area.

• HUMANITIES (ELA, social studies, history, linguistic-based instruction, etc.)

• STEAM+ (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, health sciences, CTE, etc.)

NOTE: When choosing the correct Scorecard, consider the content area that your unit and the instruction linked to these curriculum materials falls under. This might not necessarily be the specific content area in which you teach or your role falls under, especially if you are a specialist. This may also be true if you have a cross content unit. Again, choose the correct Scorecard based on the curriculum and content area it best falls under.

If you are not sure which Scorecard to use, please contact Kim Garrison.

NOTE: At this point you may be leaving this page and headed to the page that will lead you through using the correct Scorecard. However, the general process is outlined below. Although, you will want to follow the resources on the Scorecard page for your content area. 

2. Pull out keywords that represent each statement that the evaluation team can look for.
Once you have your curriculum and the scorecard in hand, review the statements for the scorecard you will begin with (Representation, Social Justice or Teachers Materials). Make sure the if you are working as a team that the team understands each statement. Refer to the Glossary and Explanations below with any questions you may have. Chart key words, ideas and qualities from the statements that you will be looking for as you read the curriculum. This will help ensure that as you read, you are focused on the information you’ll need in order to effectively score.

3. Conduct the evaluation.
The scorecard asks for your level of satisfaction with the curriculum on various measures. There is no right answer; this is just your opinion as someone who cares about culturally responsive education. As you answer each statement, use the Scoring Guidelines to help you decide your ratings.

4. Score the evaluation and interpret the results.
Tally your score for each section of the scorecard. A curriculum may excel in one area and fall short in another, and it is important to record those differences. You should come out with one score for each of the following sections outlined in your scorecard. 

5. Discuss with your team, a colleague, or as a school (optional/suggested practice).

Discuss the process with your team or join up with a colleague.

1. • Did anything new come up? 

   • What was easy and what was hard? 

   • Did some items seem more important than others? 

This is also an opportunity to strategize about next steps.

1. • Do you think this evaluation provides an accurate picture of the curriculum? 

   • Does additional information need to be collected? 

   • Is there anyone you want to meet with to discuss the results?

6. Share the results.
We will collect the results of your score cards as a way to look at the overall review process, get feedback on your experience and to hear what you learned. Note: This is the beginning of a practice that MVYPS will be adopting as part of a curriculum review cycle. You are not being evaluated on your scorecards. The results will allow district leaders to support training for using a CRE curriculum review tool and to report out to DESE that we are engaging in this practice.

Share your Scorecard results here!

Getting to an understanding of our own biases

https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cb19.ss.cuimplicitbias/concepts-unwrapped-implicit-bias/

Harvard Implicit Bias Test