Beyond ‘adopt and hope’

“High-quality instructional materials alone won’t fuel achievement gains. What else is needed? At a Glance Too often, high-quality instructional materials don’t live up to their potential because teachers are not able to implement them with fidelity. Teachers find it challenging to teach grade-level content while helping students who are behind to catch up. Some schools do not provide ongoing coaching that helps teachers adapt to the new materials. Interventions too often take students out of the classroom during core lessons. Leaders don’t have the training needed to ensure that necessary structures are in place. Instead of focusing on buying better tools, schools and districts need to build better systems. When Katherine Cheng walked into classrooms at Armour Elementary on Chicago’s South Side over the past few years, she saw something new: Students were grappling with challenging texts, talking through ideas, correcting each other’s misconceptions, and taking intellectual risks. Cheng, who previously was the principal at Armour and now leads a principal network within Chicago Public Schools, says those observations reflected a shift toward a high-quality literacy curriculum and a strong support system around it. “Ongoing coaching has helped our school leadership build expertise on the curriculum, delivery, and implementation,” Cheng explains. “Not only in terms of student outcomes, but the teacher actions that can be supported and enhanced to achieve the full experience intended in the curriculum.” Armour’s story is encouraging, but the progress Cheng observed is not as common as it should be. Across the country, districts have adopted high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) at historic rates, thanks to more robust and transparent methods of reviewing curriculum, state policies requiring the use of evidence-based materials, advocacy campaigns by well-respected groups like the Council of Chief State School Officers, and COVID-era funding. Yet, student achievement hasn’t rebounded from historic lows seen during the pandemic. National math scores remain far below pre-pandemic levels, with the steepest declines among students who were already struggling (National Center for Education Statistics, 2025). Even in states that led the early HQIM movement, academic gains have been uneven (Steiner, 2024). So why aren’t better materials leading to better results at scale? The lost potential of HQIM There is evidence that the investment by states and districts in high-quality instructional materials has led to an uptick in their use. In math, more than half of teachers now report regularly using curriculum aligned to academic standards, one aspect of high-quality curriculum (Doan et al., 2025). That’s a jump from about one-third in 2018. But that still may mean many teachers aren’t using standards-aligned, highly rated classroom resources. And teachers don’t always use the materials assigned to them to the degree expected. RAND researchers found that, even when given carefully vetted materials, most teachers continue to mix materials — using multiple programs, supplements, and self-created resources (Doan et al., 2025). It’s a systemic failure. The adoption of new, high-quality, rigorous materials follows the unprecedented disruption to education associated with COVID. Many students are working far behind where they should be. Classroom teachers report feeling unprepared, unsupported, and forced to modify lessons because students enter school years behind grade level (Steiner, 2024). Education leaders report that they want to support overwhelmed teachers but say they lack the specific content and curriculum expertise to do so effectively. And across schools, professional learning systems, scheduling structures, and intervention models are rarely aligned to the instructional demands of high-quality instructional materials. The result is what many district leaders jokingly — and nervously — call “adopt and hope.” The barriers to HQIM success After studying dozens of districts and hundreds of classrooms serving a broad range of communities, with help from partners at research universities such as the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins, my colleagues and I found a consistent answer: materials alone cannot overcome the systemic conditions that undermine their use. Barrier 1: Teachers are asked to do the impossible Teachers want to implement rigorous materials. But many find themselves trying to teach grade-level content while simultaneously catching kids up on knowledge and skills they should have acquired in earlier grades — a task that would challenge even the most expert educator (Rose & Steiner, 2025). One Louisiana curriculum director described the pressure vividly: “We tell teachers not to water down the lessons, but we also tell them to meet students where they are. Without tools to bridge the gap, they default to what feels doable.” Great classroom materials need to be paired with tools to assess gaps and resources to address them. That can look like a quick pre-unit check that pinpoints which prerequisite skills students are missing and a small set of curriculum-aligned activities to address those gaps while staying on grade level. It can also mean intervention resources that map directly to the core program so students are preparing for upcoming lessons, not working on a separate track. Without such tools, teachers pull from wherever they can and modify and skip lessons, finding themselves unable to get students caught up. RAND found that nearly all teachers alter HQIM content in ways that undermine coherence (Doan et al., 2025). Researchers have coined the term curriculum dilution to describe this quiet but pervasive trimming, simplifying, and supplementing that reduces rigor and disrupts instructional design (Steiner, 2024). Barrier 2: Support systems don’t match the complexity of teaching Effective implementation requires sustained, curriculum-specific coaching — not general coaching or the one-off professional development (PD) days that are all too common in schools. It’s estimated that roughly 40% of schools don’t have instructional coaches (Ng, 2024), which means that a large percentage of schools aren’t offering the support teachers need to implement HQIM effectively. Meridian School District in Washington state illustrates what a good support system looks like. When they adopted a new math curriculum in the 2024-25 school year, they carved out time for cycles of modeling, co-teaching, and collaborative planning. Teachers received up to 20 one-on-one coaching sessions, along with other professional learning opportunities. They reported that this helped them understand what the curriculum required and why its pedagogy mattered. In the first year of implementing the curriculum, when some schools see dips in achievement as the school community becomes accustomed to the new resource, Meridan students made large achievement gains in math. St. Charles Parish in Louisiana adopted a similar approach to shifts in math instruction. Instead of a districtwide rollout of a new curriculum, they piloted carefully paired teachers with trained coaches, prepared leaders to observe instruction using curriculum-specific look-fors, and protected instructional minutes. Their early gains offered a clear illustration of how deliberate piloting, coaching, and protected instructional time can strengthen curriculum implementation. A New York University study of 38 first-grade classrooms participating in New York City’s NYC Reads initiative found that students made the largest reading fluency gains in classrooms that not only used high-quality decodable texts consistently but also received structured implementation supports — coaching, aligned routines, ready-to-use lesson plans, and curriculum-connected progress monitoring (Neuman, 2024). Classrooms with stronger implementation support showed significantly higher growth than those with minimal or no support. In other words, the materials worked — but they worked best when embedded in a coherent ecosystem of support for teachers. The pattern is clear: Materials don’t succeed on their own. They become effective when professional learning, coaching, and leadership practices are intentionally aligned to support them. Barrier 3: Unfinished learning requires an ecosystem, not more intervention One of the key problems undermining HQIM is the disconnect between the core curriculum and aligned instruction that all students receive, sometimes referred to as Tier 1 instruction, and supplemental instruction designed to help students who are behind catch up, sometimes referred to as Tier 2 intervention. Most districts unfortunately still rely on skill-based intervention models that operate independently of the core curriculum. Students practice isolated skills disconnected from core instruction. Worse, students sometimes miss core classes to get this extra help, pushing them further behind. What’s more, special education teachers and other staff assigned to work with the students who are behind often work from different materials than general education classroom teachers. Most tests and diagnostic assessments identify gaps in student learning, but they rarely provide a road map back to the core curriculum. As a result, students return to core instruction still unprepared — and teachers modify lessons once again (Rose & Steiner, 2025). Our research indicates that the solution for unfinished learning must be built into the instructional ecosystem. That requires: Just-in-time diagnostic tests tied to upcoming general education units Curriculum-connected scaffolds within lessons that make core instruction accessible to all students while still retaining grade-level rigor Intervention that explicitly aligns with Tier 1 core instruction Time structures or schedules that prevent students from missing any core instruction and allow teachers to address gaps and teach the day’s lesson San Tan Heights in Arizona partnered with Great Minds to implement an integrated, whole-school model with high-quality instructional materials across subjects, coaching for teachers and leaders, and a data-based system for monitoring implementation saw multiyear gains across subjects, with the strongest growth among students who began furthest behind (Johns Hopkins University, 2025). The difference wasn’t just the curriculum. It was the ecosystem around it. Barrier 4: Time, coherence, and leadership structures aren’t designed for HQIM Teachers frequently report lacking adequate instructional time and relief from competing initiatives to implement high-quality resources as needed. They also state that leaders don’t understand what’s really required to do this work well. Our survey data highlight an underlying reason these conditions break down. Across 269 districts and 1,262 leaders, 76% said they had sufficient knowledge of the curriculum to support implementation. Yet field observations reveal a consistent gap between leaders’ knowledge and their demonstrated understanding. Many can speak about instructional priorities in general terms but struggle to recognize when instruction diverges from the curriculum or when essential models, routines, or representations are missing. This gap matters. Leaders make critical decisions about scheduling, planning time, initiative load, and professional learning. Without detailed curriculum knowledge, they may protect the wrong minutes, overlook misalignments, or assume instruction is on track when it is not. Subject-area expertise alone is not enough; for example, a former math teacher unfamiliar with a particular HQIM might miss when a teacher omits a foundational model on which an entire unit depends. A key solution is to ensure school and system leaders get curriculum-aligned training. In an op-ed, a Massachusetts administrator describes how transformative it was when his district invested in professional learning for administrators, not just teachers, on the science of reading. Once leaders understood the curriculum more deeply, observations and coaching conversations changed (Bransfield, 2024). Greater knowledge of the curriculum can also encourage leaders to ensure the structures teachers need to do the work are in place. For example, too many leaders shape schedules around tradition rather than true academic needs. When my colleagues and I visit schools, we sometimes see students pulled out during core math and reading times for intervention meant to catch them up. Intervention must not intrude on vital general instruction. We’ve also seen professional learning programs that fail to include support staff whose job it is to help kids catch up. At San Tan Heights in Arizona, the leadership team treats scheduling like a critical engineering challenge. Great schedules allow all kids to get core instruction and the help they need while giving educators and leaders the time they need to develop their skills and expertise. Leaders must ensure the time they’re giving core subject areas reflects their teaching and learning goals. What works: The four conditions of a high-quality ecosystem Across the research and our observations in schools, four conditions help predict whether HQIM lead to improved student outcomes. Together, these conditions form a high-quality coherent ecosystem in which materials, assessments, professional learning, leadership practices, and time structures reinforce one another. Teachers need sustained, curriculum-specific coaching. Effective implementation depends on embedded modeling, rehearsal, and feedback tied directly to the lessons teachers teach. Any support for unfinished learning must align to core instruction. Diagnostic assessments, scaffolds, and intervention materials must prepare students for the actual content they will encounter in class. Leaders need curriculum training and instructionally aligned PD. When principals understand the curriculum deeply, they coach more effectively, protect time more intentionally, and guide teachers with clarity. Time and coherence must be treated as essential resources. Districts must reduce initiative overload and structure the day so rigorous materials can be implemented as designed. From buying materials to building ecosystems The team at Armour Elementary in Chicago, the leaders in Louisiana, the teachers in Meridian, and the commitment to culture at San Tan Heights illustrate a hopeful truth: Students can make extraordinary gains when we build systems that make rigorous instruction possible. This work requires shifting from a mindset of “buying better tools” to one of “building better systems.” It requires leaders to treat implementation as a long-term instructional change, not a procurement decision. And it requires supporting teachers not just through training, but through ecosystems that make excellence possible. The promise of high-quality materials remains strong. To fulfill it, we must stop asking teachers to do the impossible alone — and start giving them the support structures they need to make rigorous instruction a reality. References Bransfield, R. (2024). School leaders need training in the science of reading, just like teachers. The 74 Million. Doan, S., Woo, A., Shapiro, A., Bellows, L., & Kassan, E.B. (2025). Teachers’ use of instructional materials from 2019–2024. RAND Corporation. Johns Hopkins University. (2025). T he Great Minds and San Tan Heights partnership: Student outcomes . National Center for Education Statistics. (2025). The Nation’s Report Card: National Assessment of Educational Progress . U.S. Department of Education. Neuman, S. (2025). Geodes in practice: Evidence of efficacy and the role of implementation supports in driving reading gains. New York University Liberty, Technology, & Culture Lab. Ng., A. (2024, April 3). How common are instructional coaches in schools? Education Week Market Brief. Rose, J. & Steiner, D. (2025). Time, data, flexible materials: Making HQIM work. The 74 Million. Steiner, D. (2024). Why teachers don’t use the high-quality instructional materials they’re given. Thomas B. Fordham Institute. This work was funded by the Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Gates Foundation. This article appears in the Spring 2026 issue of Kappan, Vol. 107, No. 5-6. The post Beyond ‘adopt and hope’ appeared first on Kappan Online .

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