In a Wisconsin school, the principal had difficulty keeping track of what students in each grade were learning from one year to the next. That’s because the school not only used a core reading curriculum, but individual teachers also made many adjustments to it, supplementing with other materials they felt would benefit their students. At the end of the year, then, students’ reading abilities differed in their patterns of strengths and weaknesses depending on which teacher they’d had.
That’s one of the primary difficulties of mixing and matching reading programs and other materials in the classroom. According to Education Week, data show that such mixing and matching is more common now than before COVID. A recent survey from the RAND corporation found the average teacher uses five supplemental resources, up from about four in the 2018-19 school year.[1]
In a separate survey, this one run by the Center for Education Market Dynamics, almost half of school district leaders said their teachers used two or more different programs in English/language arts classes. Many researchers and education specialists argue that supplementing core programs in this way don’t only water down the rigor of the curriculum for students, but is also logistically complicated for teachers.
However, teacher surveys reveal instructors believe they need flexibility to make complex material more accessible for their students, as they may come into the classroom with a wide range of different ability levels.
Some teachers indicate they need the ability to bring in evidence-based resources when their schools don’t provide them. But the central debate over curriculum supplementation implicates central tensions in the teaching profession. The first is how much autonomy individual teachers and principals should have. The second is how educators should balance the goal of holding all their students to grade-level standards, while also providing multiple entry points into challenging lessons. The answer may lie in developing consistency across classrooms.
In a 2022 survey, teachers reported that the curricular materials weren’t engaging enough, they didn’t differentiate lessons for students who were at different levels, and they didn’t provide support for students with disabilities—even when outside groups designated the resources as high quality.[1]
For some time, educators have argued that having to follow tightly controlled, “scripted” curricula, robs them of their ability to exercise professional judgment. As one teacher pointed out, developing the curriculum for their students was as much an art as it was a science.
Most of the resources available online, some teachers feel, are “chaotic and wildly unorganized.” There are, however, “high-quality instructional materials”— core curricula given high marks by external reviewers that require students to take on demanding work. While some students will require extra support as an “entry point” into these materials, that help should be targeted to important prerequisite skills and not serve as a general review of content below grade level.
However, even when districts shell out for new “high quality” curricula, the leaders’ decisions about what’s appropriate or not often doesn’t align with teachers’ views about what best serves their students. By including teacher feedback early in the curriculum’s development, it can help prevent teachers from needing to look for alternate material during the year.
Citation:
[1] Schwartz, Sarah. (August 8, 2025). “The Many Reasons Teachers Supplement Their Core Curricula—and Why it Matters.” Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/the-many-reasons-teachers-supplement-their-core-curricula-and-why-it-matters/2025/08?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=eml&utm_campaign=popweek&M=14512017&UUID=b3fade9a2f68f6087f77f1f471976f89&T=18930873
