School District Responds to Concerns About Language !Live Curriculum

Several Concerns Yet To Be Addressed

The Language !Live Curriculum, used in the Amherst Public Schools for students with reading challenges was the subject of a lengthy critique by Katie Lazdowski that appeared in the Indy on September 22, 2023.  (Editor’s note: Lazdowski was appointed to the Amherst School Committee on September 26.)  Lazdowski, using an analysis grounded in the works of prominent scholars of education James Gee, Paulo Freire, and Henry Giroux, suggested that the curriculum is explicitly racist and employs pedagogical tools that reinforce cultural prejudices about people of color. 

Lazdowski concluded her critique saying  “…my main concern is how this curriculum made its way into the district. The curriculum must have been recently acquired (it is published in 2021) yet it goes against one of the objectives outlined in the 2019 Strategic Plan, a document developed to guide the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District towards improvement. Objective C reads  ‘Strengthen instructional practice to respond to the cultural identities of students of color while dismantling white supremacy in the system, for all students’. Was this curriculum not vetted? Who, within the district, is responsible for vetting curriculum, and how did they overlook the blatant nature of these examples?”

Kathleen Traphagen was among several respondents in the comments section to the article. She observed, “ I can’t see any mention of the importance of culturally and linguistically sustaining practices or culturally responsive education anywhere connected to a description of Language! Live.”. 

School District Responds
Following publication of the critique, the school district received inquires from parents and educators seeking answers to Lazdowski’s concerns.  They received an email from the district, either from Mary Cleary Keily, Administrator of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment or Debbie Westmoreland, Director of Communications and Operations (the emails were identical).

The email (reprinted in full below) reported that the Language !Live curriculum has been used successfully in the district for the past two years to support students at both the Middle School and High School who had reading difficulties and that instructors reported that its use resulted “in demonstrated, positive growth in their students’ literacy skills through the use of the on-line component of the curriculum.” 

The district email acknowledged that some staff “have expressed concerns” about the curriculum and in particular, the training manual and workbook that is meant to supplement the on-line learning component.  It indicated that as a result of the critical feedback, the district would undertake further review of the curriculum and that in the meantime, instructors could opt to not use the workbook as part of their instruction. 

The email stated, “As a standard part of our process for curriculum implementation, after the training, the district solicited feedback from staff about the appropriateness and efficacy of the Language !Live curriculum. The staff who responded provided feedback that affirmed the efficacy of the on-line component of Language !Live but raised concerns about aspects of the student workbooks and teacher manuals. The district solicited detailed input from staff in order to follow up with the publisher and to determine whether the workbooks could be used at all or whether other materials or approaches would be more appropriate.’  

“Staff were told that they could either omit the workbooks, in whole or in part, from the intervention or utilize aspects they deemed appropriate using their professional judgment.  Ongoing dialogue is currently underway with staff who indicated an interest and willingness to review the curriculum more closely and provide critical feedback.”

Concerns Not Addressed 
Following those exchanges, Lamikco Magee, a special education teacher at the Middle School, former president of the Amherst Pelham Education Association (APEA), and a member of the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council (RIAC) of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), wrote to interim School Superintendent Doug Slaughter protesting the district’s continued use of the curriculum.

She wrote “I take issue with your response to this matter. Language !Live curriculum was not vetted and contains obviously racist and deeply troubling content.  Yet, your response is not to pull the curriculum, but to allow teachers to continue to teach it if they so choose.  Your response disregards the district’s mission to dismantle white supremacy and basically indicates that it’s okay for us to continue to use racist curriculum.  Quite frankly, your response is dismissive.”  

“I will continue to address racism anywhere it may be found,” Magee wrote. ”As a new member of the RIAC for DESE, I feel compelled to not let this issue be dismissed.  Please pull the curriculum until it has been vetted by a diverse committee of staff.  Reviews of curriculum should be presented to a curriculum and instruction subcommittee of the school committees prior to being adopted.We must protect our students and not expose them to content that reinforces the inequitable systems that currently exist in public education and our country.  ”

Magee’s letter drew support from APEA president Chirs Herland who wrote that “Enough educators in the district have raised serious concerns regarding racist content in these materials that there is no other course of action. We must remove them from the shelves pending a serious review conducted by all stakeholders.”

Slaughter responded (see full letter below) thanking the educators for their input. He asserted that the problems they had called attention to were with the workbook and not with the core, on-line curriculum.  He informed them that the district would no longer use the workbook and that he had established a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion panel to do a comprehensive review of the curriculum. Details of who would sit on that panel, how they would conduct their review, and when they would begin their work were not provided. Lazdowski’s original questions about how such a flawed curriculum had come to be purchased by the district were not addressed.

Response From Superintendent Doug Slaughter (10/3)
I want to thank each of you for reaching out regarding the Language!Live (L!L) curriculum.  As I stated in the final sentence of my message to the ARMS and ARHS staff, ongoing dialogue is currently underway with staff who indicated an interest and willingness to review the curriculum more closely and provide critical feedback.  I consider this an important part of that dialogue. As such, I want to share the following.

The L!L curriculum consists of two parts: an online component that is self-paced and prioritizes foundational reading skills practice, and a teacher-guided component that involves workbooks.  The workbooks include text selections where students work on applying the explicit systematic literacy and language skills.

The online component has been a part of special education reading instruction at ARMS and ARHS for some years now, and the teachers using it reported finding it effective for instruction. They had not been using the workbooks, only the online component.  This feedback was a significant factor in choosing L!L for general education students who struggle with literacy skills.

Professional development, which covered both the online and workbook portions of the curriculum, was provided at the beginning of the school year for teachers who would be new to using L!L. After the training, some staff members expressed concerns about the workbook component of L!L, and those concerns were further reiterated by Dr. Lazdowski’s article in The Indy, which was based on her analysis of the training manual used at that training.  

In response, the district reached out to the publisher about the concerns that were raised.  What we’ve learned is that the publisher’s training manual used in the training still contains portions of the text and questions from the 1.0 version of the L!L curriculum, not the 2.0 version which is what we purchased for use at ARMS/ARHS. Prior to the 2.0 printing, the publisher conducted a full DEI review and many areas of concern in the 1.0 version (including some that were raised in Dr. Lazdowski’s analysis) were corrected in the newer version.  The company acknowledged this error in their training and will address the issue.

Despite the publisher’s assurances that their DEI review was comprehensive, the District is pursuing an instructional materials review of the 2.0 version of L!L, as outlined in Policy IJA: Instructional Materials Reconsideration (which was extensively reviewed and revised by our team of ARPS librarians during the last school year and approved by the School Committees in June).  The materials will be reviewed with a particular focus on whether the DEI concerns have been adequately addressed in the updated version.  In the meantime, please be aware that no teachers are using, or will use, the workbooks.

Original Response from the District (9/22)
Teachers have expressed concern in recent years about the literacy skills level of general education students in the middle and high schools. 

Collectively, we know that reading challenges can have a disproportionate impact on students’ ability to effectively engage in learning and be successful academically in high school and in their post high school endeavors. This year, the middle and high schools began utilizing the literacy skills curriculum Language!Live to support general education students who demonstrate reading challenges. This is an expanded use of the curriculum, which has been used by our secondary-level special education reading specialists for the past two years, resulting in demonstrated, positive growth in their students’ literacy skills through the use of the on-line component of the curriculum.

Beyond the explicit, systematic foundational reading skill instruction addressed in the on-line component, the Language!Live program also includes a workbook component that uses text to engage and apply literacy and language skills.  Some staff have expressed concerns about the use of Language!Live, particularly the workbook component of the curriculum.  To address these concerns and increase understanding, we want to share the following information about the decision to expand use of Language!Live and the ongoing process for curriculum review and feedback.

Last year, the District began work to bring English Language Arts (ELA) intervention back to the middle school and to expand it at the high school for students who demonstrated reading skills at lower levels.   

The Student Services Office engaged in discussion with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop a plan to assess and provide targeted intervention to students this school year.  Through the use of IDEA grant funds, ELA intervention staff was increased, curriculum purchased, and training was provided at the start of this school year.

All students in grades 6, 7 and 8 participated in a benchmark assessment last spring and students who might benefit from a targeted intervention were identified. Parents were notified that their child would benefit from intervention and given the opportunity to opt-out of receiving it.

As a standard part of our process for curriculum implementation, after the training, the district solicited feedback from staff about the appropriateness and efficacy of the Language!Live curriculum.

The staff who responded provided feedback that affirmed the efficacy of the on-line component of Language!Live but raised concerns about aspects of the student workbooks and teacher manuals. The District solicited detailed input from staff in order to follow up with the publisher and to determine whether the workbooks could be used at all or whether other materials or approaches would be more appropriate.  

Staff were told that they could either omit the workbooks, in whole or in part, from the intervention or utilize aspects they deemed appropriate using their professional judgment.  Ongoing dialogue is currently underway with staff who indicated an interest and willingness to review the curriculum more closely and provide critical feedback.