Tracing Messages About Common Core Instruction: An Analysis of State-Provided Resources for English/Language Arts

• In Event: 56.041 - Theories and Analysis in Relational Governance: Shaping Policy Through Research, Ideas, and Networks

Abstract

Purpose and Literature
In this paper, we describe messages about secondary English/Language Arts (ELA) instruction present in a sample of 298 state-provided curricular resources for college and career readiness standards. Research suggests that teachers look to state educational agencies (SEAs) for guidance about new standards (Kane et al., 2016; Opfer, Kaufman, & Thompson, 2016). Prior work suggests that Common Core State Standards (CCSS) resources send different messages about teaching, including curricular content and pedagogy (Authors, 2014). Because curricular resources translate policy messages into concrete ideas for instructional practice (Ball & Cohen, 1996), resources that communicate mixed messages interrupt the link between policy and practice. While teachers’ use of curriculum in classrooms is important, so too are the curricular materials available to teachers; this is especially true as teachers work to implement a set of new standards that may be different from their state’s previous standards (Porter, McMaken, Hwang, & Yang, 2011).

Methods
Our study investigates the following questions: What messages about instruction are present in secondary ELA resources provided by state educational agencies, and to what extent are instructional messages similar or different? The data in this study come from a larger study of state-endorsed resources for secondary ELA (Authors, under review), in which we coded each of the 2,023 curriculum and professional development resources available on all 51 state educational agency websites. In the prior study, we conducted a social network analysis (Wasserman & Faust, 1994; Scott, 2000) of the connections between SEAs and the 313 organizations/states sponsoring those resources to identify the organizations to which states were most frequently linking as sources of CCSS resources (see Appendix A for sociogram).

In the current study, we used open coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2014) to identify instructional messages in a subset of 298 resources provided by the 28 organizations that five or more states named as resource sponsors. Appendix B shows a list of these organizations, and the percentage of states linked to each organization.

 
Results
Preliminary findings suggest a range of messages about instruction conveyed through these resources. Instructional messages largely align around the highly publicized “shifts” for CCSS instruction, as many resources reference text complexity, nonfiction reading, using evidence, and argument writing (for example, the EQuIP rubrics, developed by Achieve and linked to by six states). However, other resources emphasize the importance of narrative reading and writing. These findings demonstrate how network analysis can be used to identify the spread of ideas about policy change and instructional reform.

Authors

• Emily Hodge, Montclair State University

• Serena Jean Salloum, Ball State University

• Susanna Latham Benko, Ball State University