The Board can serve its students better by creating an aligned and rigorous curriculum.

The D25 Board can be more responsible to its students by aligning the curricula to standards and assuring that classes within the district are aligned to each other.

The current board President said in 2013 that the district has been planning for Common Core since 2010. (Daily Herald http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130215/submitted/302158594/)

However, as we start 2017, the District is still not fully aligned.  There is no baseline measure for what all District 25 students are expected to learn each year.  This means that students within the same school may have very different learning outcomes.  Below is a list of the curriculum and content standards that other districts are using.  This information is easily accessible and is public information on these districts’ websites.  District 25 does not have any such information.  Additionally, when parents have asked the district for curriculum maps, they were told that it didn’t exist or they were denied access to it.

 Here are the curriculum goals for District 21
https://ccsd21.org/curriculum/reading-literature-informational-text-6/?sortby=subject

 Here are the curriculum goals for District 103
http://www.d103.org/page.cfm?p=2854

 Here are the curriculum goals and pacing guides for District 96
http://www.kcsd96.org/curriculum/Pacing-Guides-Middle-School.cfm

 Here are the essential outcomes for District 54
 https://sd54.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Mission-Vision-Commitments-and-Goals-English-8-2-16.pdf

In the 2013 Daily Herald, the Board President said,

“[Common Core] is something that District 25 has been planning for since 2010, which puts us ahead of the curve compared to many districts. I believe the common core standards will put children from across the country on a more level playing field in terms of what they are taught, how they are taught, and how we can evaluate a school in Illinois compared to a school in any of the other 46 states that have adopted these standards. The Board's job should be to ask relevant, essential questions during the curriculum planning and review process to ensure that it is the best curriculum for our students.”

If the District has been planning for Common Core since 2010, why are there no standards linking the curriculum in District 25 to the Common Core?  What are the relevant, essential questions that the Board has asked? What is the curriculum review process described in the 2013 article above?  Can the Board illustrate what the timeline for the curriculum review process has been since 2010?

As parents and taxpayers, we should know what the learning goals are for our kids.  And the district's vision should be for all students to reach those goals regardless of what teacher the student has or what school the student is in.

The current board and Superintendent will claim that the district is aligned to Illinois Learning Standards, but they simply added a link to their webpage in response to my campaign. Up to a month ago, the learning standards were vague and not aligned. Here is a screenshot of the standards that the district was using until 2016: