Pearson's ReadyGen Common Core Texts Full of Errors

From the Daily News:

It's a bungled effort to boost standards.

Teachers across the city are reporting problems with the new reading and writing textbooks recommended by the Department of Education. Not only were books delivered more than a month into the school year in some cases, but the lessons from testing and publishing giant Pearson are poorly planned, too long and full of mistakes.

“They are loaded with errors,” said Rebecca Murphy, a third-grade special education teacher at Public School 91 in Queens.

The mistakes include a third-grade workbook page on the text “The Case of the Gasping Garbage” that asks students questions about another reading entirely, a page in a kindergarten workbook printed upside down, and teachers’ manuals that simply don’t match the student texts.

As part of the new Common Core curriculum, the city recommended elementary-school principals purchase either the Pearson’s ReadyGEN textbooks or one other alternative .

Officials said teachers might be having trouble because the materials are new. “Individual teachers have wide discretion over which parts to use, and while some teachers may be struggling during this transition, that doesn’t justify attacks on the instructional value of the curriculum,” said schools spokesman Devon Puglia.

Teachers’ union head Michael Mulgrew responded: “The Department of Ed, as usual, is taking no responsibility for their complete screw-up.”

The materials are part of the same Pearson curriculum that, as the Daily News reported last month asks kindergarten kids to draw pictures of vocabulary words like “responsibility” and “distance.”

Pearson faulted the distributor for delivery delays this fall. “This was always intended to be a rolling implementation,” said spokeswoman Susan Aspey.