One of the odd features of education policy is that while a plethora of research exists on the effects of systemic reforms (e.g., class size, charter schools, teacher and school accountability mechanisms), on student achievement there is very little data on whether curriculum – what kids are actually being taught – makes a difference. As the Urban Institute's Matthew Chingos notes: "It's as if the medical profession worried about the administration of hospitals and patient insurance but paid no attention to the treatments that doctors give their patients."
Slowly, however, the notion that curriculum counts is beginning to gain traction. At a recent Hopkins/Hunter forum (a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Hunter College), Harvard professor Thomas Kane discussed a recent five-state study he oversaw that showed high-quality instructional materials produced a larger effect than having an experienced teacher versus a novice teacher. Kane plans to follow up with a national study in 2017. Other researchers, such as the Urban Institute's Chingos and the University of Southern California's Morgan Polikoff, are conducting studies on curricular effectiveness, but states don't make it easy: Most states don't collect information regarding which instructional materials schools are using.
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