New EQuIP Call to Action Seeks High-Quality Materials Aligned to Common Core

Washington, D.C. – February 4, 2015 – Achieve today announced a call to action for educators to submit high-quality units aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). As part of an effort to study and strengthen resources to meet teachers’ needs, Achieve partnered with Student Achievement Partners and a group of education content experts to identify a number of K-8 high priority standards in English Language Arts (ELA) / literacy and in mathematics for which the need for high-quality and aligned instructional materials is particularly critical.

“As teachers have worked diligently to implement the Common Core in their classrooms, we have heard their need for quality instructional materials that will enable them to help all students,” said Alissa Peltzman, Vice President of State Policy and Implementation Support at Achieve. “Educators represent an incredible wealth of knowledge and experience; the identification and dissemination of high-quality units they’ve designed benefits the entire educator community. One of the hallmarks of EQuIP has been the ongoing commitment to building capacity and elevating the expertise of educators.”

As part of Achieve’s Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products (EQuIP) initiative, units will be evaluated for quality and alignment to the specified standards by a panel of peer reviewers representing more than 1,000 years of teaching expertise.

Developers of units submitted through this process, aligned to the high priority standards, and identified as Examples by the EQuIP quality review process will receive an award of $1,500 as well as wide dissemination and recognition of their efforts. All Example units will be made freely available for download and use by educators across the country.

The submission process is open to everyone. The developers of successful submissions will possess deep understanding of the instructional shifts found in the CCSS, instructional materials development experience, and content area expertise.

Interested individuals or organizations must register and submit materials online at http://lessons.achieve.org. There will be two review cycles through which prizes will be awarded; the first deadline for submitting units is March 20, 2015 and the second is June 3, 2015. Full details about the submission process are available in the call to action.

MEDIA CONTACT: Chad Colby (202) 419-1570, ccolby@achieve.org