The South Carolina Department of Education headquarters in Lexington County (Provided by SC Department of Education)
As an educator, I remember the late nights all too well — the hours spent piecing together resources, searching online and crafting material.
Like so many educators, I wanted my lessons to engage every student and meet the expectations of rigorous state standards. It’s a Herculean effort.
This isn’t just my story. Across the country, countless teachers are doing the same, pouring their hearts into creating lessons from scratch.
Unfortunately, research from TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) shows that these well-intentioned, teacher-created resources align with grade-level standards only about 20% of the time, according to a 2018 report .
This is not because teachers aren’t working hard enough. It’s because we’re asking them to do too much with too little.
This status quo leaves students without consistent access to the quality instruction they deserve, and it’s exhausting for teachers. But it doesn’t have to be this way.