A new language arts curriculum at Dallas ISD reportedly has some teachers worried about the pace of lessons.
Dallas ISD deployed its Amplify program districtwide this school year. The program is supposed to help standardize language arts lessons across campuses in a bid to get all students at grade level.
The district has been struggling to provide its students with a quality education, underperforming statewide averages in a number of student achievement outcome metrics. Only 41% of students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams during the 2021-2022 school year. The statewide average was 48%, according to the latest accountability reports by the Texas Education Agency.
In reading and language arts, some 43% of Dallas ISD students scored at grade level that school year. The statewide average was 53%. While at-grade-level performance ticked up some on last school year’s STAAR exams, most grades still came in below statewide averages, and the share of fourth graders scoring at grade level in the subject actually fell by 6% compared to the previous school year, as reported by The Dallas Express.
The Amplify curriculum “includes guiding questions and reading materials to prompt students to think at a higher level and participate in authentic discussions with their peers as well as in-depth analysis of their reading,” per Dallas ISD’s blog.
Language arts teacher Yamileth Cedillos previously praised the program, highlighting the standardization element of the effort and the benefits to teachers.
“The book is basically scripted out, everything’s done. I don’t have to worry about lesson planning. I don’t have to worry about knowing what texts I’m going to be using in the next couple of weeks; it’s already there,” Cedillos said back in August, per the district blog.
However, some educators have since spoken up about the Amplify program, claiming that the program has students moving too fast, putting some at risk of falling behind.
“There are timelines that they’re supposed to be adhering to,” said Alliance-AFT teachers union president Rena Honea, according to The Dallas Morning News. “It’s a whole new way of teaching. … Some kids are struggling and not understanding. They have to tell them, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll go back and pick up.’”
Dallas ISD officials countered that the standardization element was important, considering how high intra-district mobility has been in the school system.
Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde claimed the program should also help teachers in terms of work-life balance.
“We want to simplify that because teachers need to be able to focus on what they really want to do, which is deliver and engage students in the lesson,” Elizalde said, per the DMN.
