Mapping the Adopted Core Curriculum in the Mid-Atlantic Region

EXHIBIT A

DRAFT LETTER

to SEA and LEA

ANNOUNCING CURRICULA CENSUS

Date, 2008

Dear__________:

The Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic requests your assistance in a curricula census project. We will be documenting the adopted curricula in all districts in the Mid-Atlantic region in language arts literacy, mathematics, and science in grades 1, 4, 8, and 11.

Data collected in this project will be made available to all educators in the region through an interactive, on-line, publicly available database. District and school personnel will be able to use the database to find out what other districts in the region have adopted. We will also provide information about which curricula have scientifically-based research to support their use with students. The No Child Left Behind Act requires districts to utilize research-based instructional practices in mathematics, language arts literacy, and science that address the needs of all subgroups. This project will help districts identify curricula that are scientifically-based.

We ask that you mail us copies of lists of all board adopted curricula materials in literacy, math, and science for each of the following grades or courses:

Literacy: Grade 1, Grade 4, and Grade 8

Math: Grade 4, Algebra 1, and Pre-Calculus

Science: Grade 4, Earth Science, Physics

Feel free to send the entire list for each one including core texts, supplemental materials, and associated benchmark assessments. If the material lists are part of a larger document, feel free to send the whole set and we will find the components we are looking for. There is no need for you to write up a formal response to this request as we wish to keep the burden on your staff as low as possible.

Because this project will be tracking curricula adoption over time, we ask that you also note WHEN each curricula was adopted so that we know when to expect potential changes in your adopted curricula. In this way, we will contact you only when new adoptions occur. You can simply write down a month and year on the lists of curricula (please note separately for each content area) you copy and send along if it is not already noted.

Please return all materials in the enclosed, self-addressed envelope by Date.

You can obtain more information or clarification about this request by contacting us at:

1-866-RELMAFYI or [email protected].

We welcome your support in conducting this kind of data collection.

Sincerely,

Study Team

_____________________________________________________________________

REL Mid-Atlantic will protect the confidentiality of all respondent information. No information that identifies any study participant will be released. No individually identifiable information will be maintained by the study team. All individually identifiable information will be kept in secured locations and identifiers will be destroyed as soon as they are no longer needed.

Per the policies and procedures required by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002, Title 1, Part E, Section 183, responses to this data collection will be used only for statistical purposes. The reports prepared for this study will not associate responses with a specific individual. We will not provide information that identifies you to anyone outside the study team, except as required by law. Any willful disclosure of such information for nonstatistical purposes, without the informed consent of the respondent, is a class E felony.