One of the biggest complaints I have encountered visiting classrooms around NYC is about the scripted curricula of EngageNY.  Teachers feel they are being forced to follow scripts that don’t meet the needs of their students or match their teaching style.  Depending on the level of control and surveillance in the school, some teachers have more autonomy than others over their use of these scripts.  Even the teachers who have more freedom are often afraid of being non-compliant.  For these teachers, I encourage you to show your principals the following statements on the EngageNY website:

“The optional curricular materials on EngageNY are designed to be adopted or adapted. Educators will find both PDF and Word versions available for their use. Some lessons provide detailed instructions or recommendations but it is important to note that the lessons are not scripts and rather they should be viewed as vignettes so that the reader can imagine how the class could look.

Lessons are adaptable and allow for teacher preference and flexibility so that what is happening in the classroom can both meet students’ needs and be in service to the shifts and the standards. If you do choose to make significant changes to lessons, the Tristate/EQuIP rubric is available to help you evaluate the quality, rigor, and alignment of your adapted lessons” (NYSED, 2013).

Although we know they actually ARE scripts, and the publishers DO want teachers to do as they say, teachers can use some statements from the EnageNY website as evidence as to why they don’t HAVE to do so.