The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 do not meet the expectations for assessing the Grade 7 Standards. Overall, there are too many items aligned to standards beyond Grade 7 that are not mathematically reasonable, and the omission or alteration of these items would significantly impact the underlying structure of the materials. A list of chapters with above, grade-level items is below along with the above grade-level standards for those items.

• In Chapter 1, there are assessment items involving scientific notation, which most closely align to 8.EE.A.
• In Chapter 5, there are assessment items that involve writing equations in 2-variables, which most closely align to 8.F.B.4.
• In Chapter 7, there are assessment items determining the type of correlation between two variables, which most closely aligns to 8.SP.A.
• In Chapter 8, there are assessment items involving Geometry concepts that most closely align to standards from 8.G.
• In Chapter 9, there are assessment items involving square roots, which most closely aligns to standards from 8.NS.A, and the Pythagorean Theorem, which aligns to 8.G.B.
• In Chapter 10, there are assessment items involving volume and surface area of cylinders and cones, which most closely align to 8.G.C.9.

*Evidence updated 10/27/15

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 do not meet the expectations for spending the majority of time on the major work of Grade 7.

• The major work of Grade 7 is to analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems (7.RP.A); apply and extend previous understandings of operations with fractions to add, subtract, multiply and divide rational numbers (7.NS.A); and use properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions (7.EE.B).
• Course 2 of the Holt McDougal series has approximately 25% of its content focused on the major work.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 do not meet the expectations for fostering coherence between grades.

• Using the 45-minute lesson planning guide, the course could be completed in 180 days.
• However, only about a quarter of the year would cover standards from the Grade 7 CCSSM.

The instructional materials for Grade 7 do not meet expectations for being consistent with the progression in the standards.

• The mathematics progression for Course 2 is based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points instead of the CCSSM, thus the grade-by-grade progression of the CCSSM is not reflected in these materials.
• The materials have a Reaching all Learners section at the beginning of each chapter but it does not give specific support for teachers on how to differentiate in each lesson. There are pretests for each chapter but in order to use the data to make instructional decisions a teacher would need to have the supplemental materials.
• The materials do not explicitly relate grade level material to prior knowledge from earlier grades. The same exact lesson is in each of the 6th-8th grade texts without explicitly noting this repetition.
• There is a math background section for each chapter for the teacher. It gives a general overview of connections between grade levels.

The instructional materials for Grade 7 do not meet expectations for fostering coherence.

• The mathematics progression is based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Points instead of the CCSSM, thus the learning objectives are not visibly shaped by the CCSSM cluster headings.
• The mathematics taught in this series is done in isolation without connections between clusters.
• There is repetitive work across the grade levels.