Skyline

Skyline Curriculum a Trojan Horse to Increased Standardized Testing?

By Jim Vail

The Skyline Curriculum for Chicago Public School students has teachers scratching their heads over a culturally relevant program developed by corporate America that ultimately leads to more standardized testing.

The lessons for teachers focus on a set of slides with online and hard copy texts that focus on social justice, community activism and neighorhood issues.

Teachers I spoke with feel overwhelmed by the amount of materials and information to read through in order to prepare scripted lessons, some of which are not grade level appropriate.

For example, fourth grade students are asked to read parts of two novels that are at the 7th and 8th grade levels. Many online links either do not work or Skyline did not purchase the license to access the text that is part of the lesson.

CPS paid a whopping $120 million with Covid money to purchase this online curriculum that is overtly political with a lesson on Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Some teachers said they were asked to give feedback during the design stage but realized that the company had no interest in teachers' input because it was a 'done deal.'

"It is too cumbersome," said one Southside elementary teacher. "The teacher has to spend way too much time looking at all the guidelines and little children don't need to be sitting in front of a computer for so long. If it informed my teaching I would accept it, but it hasn't."

Perhaps even more troubling for teachers and students is the increase in standardized testing that the Chicago Teachers Union has fought against. Skyline has three standardized assessments throughout the year modeled on the IAR test that many consider a very difficult test. The jolt from read alouds and feel good lessons to standardized assessments is especially troubling.

"I really have to change my teaching because some these lessons are not developmentally appropriate," said another teacher.

The CTU distributed a Skyline survey to teachers which included questions such as:

Does it hinder educators creativity? 

Should a rubric be used to evaluate its effectiveness?

How overwhelming is the curriculum?

How long does it take to complete Skyline lessons?

The education reform group Educators for Excellence that was set up several years ago with financing from anti-union and anti-public education money quickly capitalized on these concerns by sending out to teachers its own survey.

They claimed in emails that they had surveyed hundreds of teachers and made the following recommendations which really don't address the glaring problems. They include - simplify teacher materials and provide time for teacher development, offer more training on differentiating materials, provide more resource accomodations, adjust lesson pacing, and build district-wide buy-in through clear messaging.

"We know that with the money spent on Skyline already, it won't be going away any time soon, so these recommendations aim to ensure that CPS curriculum equity strategy has the best chance of success," wrote E4E, which plans to meet with CPS Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova. 

When it comes to school curriculums, CPS veteran teachers have seen many costly programs come and go over the years. During remote learning during Covid teachers were forced to come up with their own materials in addition to whatever texts they were using to adapt to online. Before that the Common Core became a standardized corporate model that forced teachers to search out their own "rigorous" materials and assessments.

Skyline may be just another corporate creature dressed up as a culturally-responsive curriculum but ultimately dooms the children to more demoralizing standardized tests.