Guidance for Selecting or Curating High-Quality Instruction…

hundreds of districts, both formally and informally, with their selection processes.

In this paper, we share effective strategies for reviewing and selecting instructional resources as well as lessons learned along the way to help you ensure the quality and coherence of the instructional resources being used on campuses across your district.

Evaluating Core and Supplemental Materials

Generally, core materials are selected at the district level, and supplemental materials are selected by campuses. During the last decade, districts have started implementing more formal processes for selecting core materials, while campus leaders typically rely on a variety of processes, including word of mouth, when selecting supplemental materials. (Wang, et al., 2019, 14). To ensure that teachers and students are supported with high-quality materials, a structured process for reviewing and selecting all instructional materials is needed. The following process considers the voices of educators, parents, and the community, facilitates consistent reviews, and produces data to support the selection decisions. Since supplemental materials are not as robust as core materials, the process may be pared down for the selection of supplemental materials as explained below.

Communicate the Need

The adoption of core materials is typically, though not always, driven by a change in state standards. In contrast, supplemental materials are adopted for many reasons. To ensure that district and/or campus leaders, teachers, and the community understand the need for new materials, it is important to clearly