As we discussed in previous data blogs, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is in the first year of collecting course data and has received data about 16,487 courses from all 72 local education agencies (LEAs) in the District. To keep everything clear, organized and consistent, each course has a corresponding code. For example, to examine English courses, we simply pull the list of courses that start with “01.” In this blog, we are going to focus on literacy curriculum.

OSSE is interested in literacy curriculum because our Division of Teaching and Learning develops professional development and resources to support literacy work for all LEAs. While providing literacy curriculum information was optional for LEAs, we received 278 courses that included curriculum information from 33 schools at 23 LEAs. In total, we received information about 2,473 English courses and literacy curriculum information from 206 of these courses (8 percent). (This includes one non-English course, as an LEA provided literacy curriculum information associated with the course.) Although we do not report findings on the other 72 courses in this blog post, we plan on expanding and discussing curriculum information on other course subjects. The collection of literacy curriculum supports the recommendations from the Literacy Task Force (LTF) which establishes LEAs to provide high-quality instructional materials. Per recent legislation about dyslexia, LEAs are required to adopt a science-based reading curriculum for the 2024-25 school year. This course collection hopes to provide a valuable data point to establish relevant and aligned resources for LEAs.

What are the most popular literacy curricula?

OSSE put together a list of widely used literacy curricula for LEAs to select from. Table 1 below shows the frequency of the curriculums used in 81 English courses that use curriculum from the option set presented to LEAs. OSSE will use this data to refine the list of curricula in future collections.

Table 1

Of the 206 English courses (including one other non-English course), “Any Other Literacy Curriculum” was used 124 times. In Table 2 below, LEAs provided the following 24 curricula:

Table 2

Did we receive any curriculum information about non-English courses?

Six LEAs provided literacy curriculum for 74 courses that aren’t considered English courses in the OSSE State Course Catalog (courses that have an OSSE Course Code that doesn’t start with “01”). We highlight these so that LEAs may consider sharing more about curriculums for other topics in the future.

Table 3:

LEA	Non-English Curriculum Information Submitted
LEA 1 & 2	Each of these LEAs submitted one course with OSSE Course Code 02079 (Geometry—Other) that uses “Montessori Language.”
LEA 3	They submitted eight courses with OSSE Course Code 04302 (Humanities). Four of the courses are each offered to a single grade span, grades 5-8. These four courses use EL Education. The remaining four courses are each offered to a single grade span, grades 5-8, and marked as being for English learners (ELs). These four courses use EL Education and Styer-Fitzgerald.
LEA 4	They submitted 30 courses with the following course titles, once each for grades Early Childhood, Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2: Mathematics: Mother Goose Time (pre-K 3), Three Cheers for PK (pre-K 4), and Envision Math Science: Mother Goose Time (pre-K 3), Three Cheers for PK (pre-K 4), and Paige & Paxton Physical and Health Education: SPARK Spanish for Young Learners: Spanish for Kids Music: Quaver Ed Art: Art Book Activity Bundle (Teachers Pay Teachers)
LEA 5	All 38 courses submitted use “LEA created curriculum,” including 33 non-English courses.
LEA 6	They are the only LEA that submitted a non-English course with information from the Literacy Curriculum option set, OSSE Course Code 05165 (Crafts), which uses the “Creative Curriculum.”

We also looked at LEAs that did not report literacy curriculum to see what we could learn. Some appear to use curricula from our option set based on their course descriptions. For example, some LEAs include Amplify Curriculum or Wilson Reading in their LEA Course Description for English Courses, but they did not report literacy curriculum information this year. We plan on attempting to improve the response rate on this element via more deliberate training and communication with LEAs.

It is important to note that OSSE does not collect information about the number of students enrolled in a course yet, making it harder to put these numbers into context. Smaller LEAs could have reported more information than larger LEAs at this stage. We don’t have enough context to understand why certain LEAs chose not to report literacy curriculum and if there are significant differences between these LEAs and the ones that did report. However, we hope this blog shows some of the potential of what course data collection can achieve. Phase 2 of the course data collection, which we plan on launching in the 2024-25 school year, will help paint a larger picture around literacy curriculum in addition to other areas we discussed in previous blog posts on course data. As our course data collection evolves and provides data on additional content areas, those additional data sets will continue to inform the need for curricular support across LEAs.

Learn More
For more information about the 2023-24 school year course data collection, please see OSSE’s website, where there is a copy of the 2023-24 School Year LEA Course Data Collection Policy Guide and the OSSE State Course Catalog.