10 Years of EdReports: Empowering Educators With Evidence

Lessons learned and progress made over 10 years of curriculum reviews and advancing quality materials. Plus, the work ahead to support educators and students.

MARCH 6, 2025

As EdReports celebrates our 10th anniversary, we have been reflecting on the progress we have helped the field make toward our guiding vision: that all students and teachers will have access to the highest quality instructional materials that will help improve student learning outcomes. 

Still, like many in the world of education, we know that a great deal of work remains to be done. We believe that high-quality, evidence-based instructional materials will be an important part of the journey to helping more students thrive. While it’s true that curriculum doesn’t teach students—teachers do—and that other factors such as attendance and school environment are significant, research shows that high-quality instructional materials, paired with professional learning, are a critical tool for teachers to support student success. 

Before EdReports published its first reviews in 2015, states and districts did not have an independent source of information about curriculum. They relied on what publishers said about their products or by word of mouth. As an independent nonprofit, EdReports has democratized this process by providing local schools, districts, and states with evidence-rich insights on curricula from expert teachers. 

Research shows that high-quality instructional materials, paired with professional learning, are a critical tool for teachers to support student success.

The Role of Independent Reviews When Dependable Evidence of Effectiveness is Scarce

There continues to be a deficiency of robust, independent evidence, as many publishers sponsor or conduct their own studies. Plus, it is extremely difficult to prove the effectiveness of any single program across multiple contexts while also accounting for the many factors that influence teaching and learning. For this reason, EdReports reviews focus on how materials are designed rather than the various ways they might be used in practice. 

Time and again, educators and leaders have shared that transparent, unbiased evaluations of instructional materials are invaluable in helping them select resources that best meet their students’ needs. This requires reviewing curriculum for multiple aspects of quality, including how well materials structure evidence-based teaching and learning grounded in research, alignment to college and career-ready standards, and supports for all students including multilingual learners. 

EdReports Is a Place to Start

We’re gratified that this approach has resonated with educators. Yet, we strongly believe that our reports are a starting point, not a prescription—and a meets expectations “green” rating should not necessarily mean go. Our reviews are designed to be just one part of a comprehensive, educator-led adoption process. 

We believe the most effective selection processes are those that recognize it isn’t as simple as just choosing a green-rated curriculum—it requires thoughtful, thorough, collaborative work.

For example, in Wisconsin, districts used EdReports to prepare for in-depth publisher discussions. In Fife, Washington, leaders combined EdReports insights with teacher surveys to develop customized selection criteria. In Rhode Island, EdReports reviews were a key resource, but other state-specific criteria were integrated into the selection process as well. We believe the most effective selection processes are those that recognize it isn’t as simple as just choosing a green-rated curriculum—it requires thoughtful, thorough, collaborative work. 

EdReports Remains Committed to Learning and Improving 

As states and districts continue the hard work of selecting materials to help teachers and students thrive, EdReports is committed to continuously improving our supports for the field. Our updated review criteria released in January 2025 are a prime example of how we listen to the field and update our tools to reflect educators’ feedback as well as the latest research and science on learning. 

For example, we have made significant enhancements to our English language arts (ELA) criteria to more tightly align to the science of reading. This includes the introduction of a dedicated indicator to ensure materials are absent of three-cueing. In other words, a curriculum reviewed using our latest criteria cannot achieve an “all-green,” or “meets expectations,” rating if it uses three-cueing. While our ELA criteria have always looked for systematic and research-based explicit phonics instruction, we did not previously have a specific score relating to the absence of three-cueing. Updates such as this underscore our ongoing commitment to responding to educator feedback and ensuring our tools evolve alongside both the latest research and the needs of the field.

We recently rolled out new labels on reports that provide educators with additional context on the purpose of reports, review tool versions, and recommendations for integrating reports into a broader instructional strategy. We also added clearer guidance on how to use our earlier reports, including detailed information on specific improvements we’ve made in ELA, math, and science. We keep every report we’ve published freely available because some of the materials and editions reviewed years ago are still in use. 

Finally, we are a nonprofit and our reports are powered by passionate, dedicated, and very busy educator reviewers. We have limitations in what we can review and how quickly we can move. We’re always willing to consider re-reviewing materials if they have been substantively updated, but that decision is prompted by changes to the materials, not to our review tools. We remain committed to working hard alongside educators to share transparent information and insights that districts and teachers value.   

While we are proud of the progress we have made over the past 10 years, we believe our best report is yet to be written. We are excited for the next decade of working closely with educators to increase demand for and access to high-quality materials—because instructional materials matter to teachers, to students, and to our collective future.

EdReports

Ethnic Studies

EdSOURCE

Renewed push to reshape ethnic studies with oversight and new standards

Legislation follows complaints and lawsuits alleging some districts' instruction fosters antisemitism

John Fensterwald

Published

March 11, 2025

TOP TAKEAWAYS

• A new Assembly bill aims to swap a voluntary curriculum with academic standards that would direct what should be taught.
• The focus would remain teaching the triumphs, struggles and perspectives of Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Black Americans.
• The bill would restrict an alternative Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum, which focuses on the power of white supremacy and condemns Israel as an oppressive colonial state.

Thirty-one legislators, led by the Legislative Jewish Caucus, are calling for a do-over on teaching ethnic studies after a half-dozen years of strife.

The authors are convinced that flaws in a voluntary model curriculum have led to complaints and lawsuits alleging that some districts are using biased and antisemitic course content and instruction. Therefore, they propose starting again by creating academic standards that would direct what is taught in the course and how.

Assembly Bill 1468 would require the State Board of Education to restart a curriculum process that was highly contested six years ago. It resulted in multiple drafts and an uneasy compromise of language and goals reflected in a nearly 700-page California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Since its adoption in 2021, school districts have had the responsibility to create their own curriculum based largely on interpretations of ambiguities of what constitutes an ethnic studies course.

“When California believes in something, we write standards for it,” said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, a former teacher. “Whether it’s English language arts, English language development, history, social science — there are different sets of standards. It creates a common understanding of what kids are supposed to be able to learn and do, and what teachers are supposed to teach.”

“What’s happened in our schools is, one, antisemitism. But two, it’s tearing a lot of communities apart over something that is supposed to be really beneficial to children when done right.”

In addition to creating academic standards, the bill would create new disclosure and oversight measures that don’t apply to the current model framework or academic standards for other subjects. They would require:

• school districts to submit ethnic studies curricula to the California Department of Education for review
• the Instructional Quality Commission, which advises the State Board of Education, to recommend a framework and instructional materials aligned to the new standards;
• the California Department of Education to report annually on compliance with state laws;
• providers of content and standards trainers to submit their materials to the state to ensure compliance with the standards.

Opposition will likely be intense.

“The bill’s push for increased oversight and censorship is deeply concerning, restricting students’ ability to engage in critical discussions on human rights, globalism, and social justice,” said Tricia Gallagher-Geursten, a lecturer in ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. “Furthermore, it diminishes the intellectual integrity of ethnic studies by dismissing the foundational theories and pedagogies that define all academic disciplines, violating the principle of academic freedom.”

“AB 1468 is driven by those seeking to regulate educational content by silencing perspectives they oppose,” she said. “At this crucial moment, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council stands with California students and our diverse communities in urging legislators to oppose AB 1468 and protect the integrity of ethnic studies.”

Last year, the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) ethnic studies faculty and the California Teachers Association led the opposition to a less sweeping bill that would have required more disclosure of a proposed ethnic studies course and a review by a committee of teachers and parents. The California Teachers Association and UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty members criticized it as unwarranted and unprecedented interference with instruction.

Addis and Assemblymember Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, introduced the bill late in the session and withdrew it because of a lack of support. This year’s 32 co-authors include legislators outside the 18-member Jewish Legislative Caucus, including Assemblymembers David Alvarez, D-San Diego, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton.

“Jewish students are facing a very difficult environment in the community at large, certainly on college campuses,” said Alvarez. “It’s important that we acknowledge that and that we have curriculum that’s standards-based, as we do with other curriculums, reflects California’s values and steers away from antisemitism.”

Targeting Liberated Ethnic Studies

The legislation would curtail districts that have adopted Liberated Ethnic Studies, although it doesn’t name the curriculum or the consortium identified with promoting it. UC and CSU ethnic studies professors and instructors developed the Liberated version as an alternative after the State Board largely rejected the first draft of the model curriculum, which they had written, as ideological and biased against Jews.

The state’s final version of the model curriculum presents a multiperspective exploration of the culture, achievements and struggles, past and ongoing, of the four primary racial and ethnic groups in California. They are Native Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.

The Liberated version takes a perspective that stresses the ongoing oppression of people of color through white supremacy and capitalism. It directs students to examine their own self-identities as to how their race, ethnicity, sexuality, and wealth and privilege intersect with others. Ethnic studies teachers say students find the courses uplifting, not pessimistic.

To date, the state has kept no records on curricula that districts have adopted, but more than two dozen districts have contracted with groups affiliated with Liberated trainers and leaders.

Charges of antisemitism

Legislators made an explicit reference to that first draft when they passed Assembly Bill 101, which established the as-yet unfunded mandate for districts to offer a one-semester ethnic studies course in high school starting in fall 2025 and to require taking it for a high school diploma starting in 2029-30.

They wrote, “it is the intent of the Legislature that (districts) not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.”

Both Attorney General Rob Bonta and Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and an adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom, have sent separate memos reminding districts to follow that prohibition. Nonetheless, proponents of the Liberated curriculum point to references to oppression and “intersectionality” included in the final framework to argue that their approach is consistent with the state framework.

The Liberated curriculum also emphasizes solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against domination by Israel, a modern “settler colonial state” oppressing people of color.

The slaughter of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas fighters in communities bordering Gaza in October 2023, followed by more than a year of fighting and bombings that have displaced hundreds of thousands of Gazans and caused the deaths of an estimated 40,000,  have heightened tensions in the classroom. Jewish organizations and parents have complained that one-sided lessons against Zionism and the Israeli government have blended into overt antisemitism.

The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating discrimination allegations against Berkeley Unified. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has filed complaints against Fremont High School, Santa Clara Unified, and, in its latest filing, against Etiwanda School District in Rancho Cucamonga.  It alleges that a seventh grade girl’s middle school failed to intervene to stop physical abuse and repeated antisemitic slurs, including a Hitler “joke,” by other students. Last month, Santa Ana Unified agreed to discontinue three Liberated-affiliated ethnic studies courses after a lawsuit over public meetings violations revealed antisemitic bias and slurs by staff members.

The proposed bill does not prohibit discussions of the Israel-Palestine issue, avoiding a trespass on free speech. However, it calls for ethnic studies to “focus on the domestic experience and stories of historically marginalized peoples in American society.”

Like Assembly Bill 101 before it, the bill would ensure that ethnic studies “remains true to its original intent — promoting inclusivity, respect, and historical accuracy for all communities with a domestic focus,” said Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park.

The 2016 law that authorized the creation of a model curriculum framework called for a committee consisting of faculty members of university ethnic studies departments, K-12 teachers, and administrators experienced in teaching the subject. The committee members whom the State Board appointed ended up writing the disputed first draft. AB 1468 also calls for a similar advisory committee, the majority of whom would be experts in ethnic studies.

Wouldn’t that possibly lead to standards similar to those in the model curriculum’s first draft — and a repeat of the animosities of the first process?

Bill author Zbur disagrees. The governor, not the State Board of Education, would name the members, and the language of the bill’s intent would make clear that the experts would be more “traditional” and not proponents of the Liberated curriculum. The advisory committee would also include representatives of communities most frequently targeted by hate crimes, thus assuring a voice from the Jewish community.

Newsom would appear sympathetic to the effort. In April 2024, he pledged in his Golden State Plan to Counter Antisemitism that he “will work with the Jewish Caucus and Legislature to pursue legislation strengthening the guardrails established by AB 101.”

His administration has not commented on the new bill.

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