10 Years of EdReports: Empowering Educators With Evidence

As EdReports celebrates our 10th anniversary, we have been reflecting on the progress we have helped the field make toward our guiding vision: that all students and teachers will have access to the highest quality instructional materials that will help improve student learning outcomes. 

Still, like many in the world of education, we know that a great deal of work remains to be done. We believe that high-quality, evidence-based instructional materials will be an important part of the journey to helping more students thrive. While it’s true that curriculum doesn’t teach students—teachers do—and that other factors such as attendance and school environment are significant, research shows that high-quality instructional materials, paired with professional learning, are a critical tool for teachers to support student success. 

Before EdReports published its first reviews in 2015, states and districts did not have an independent source of information about curriculum. They relied on what publishers said about their products or by word of mouth. As an independent nonprofit, EdReports has democratized this process by providing local schools, districts, and states with evidence-rich insights on curricula from expert teachers. 

The Role of Independent Reviews When Dependable Evidence of Effectiveness is Scarce

There continues to be a deficiency of robust, independent evidence, as many publishers sponsor or conduct their own studies. Plus, it is extremely difficult to prove the effectiveness of any single program across multiple contexts while also accounting for the many factors that influence teaching and learning. For this reason, EdReports reviews focus on how materials are designed rather than the various ways they might be used in practice. 

Time and again, educators and leaders have shared that transparent, unbiased evaluations of instructional materials are invaluable in helping them select resources that best meet their students’ needs. This requires reviewing curriculum for multiple aspects of quality, including how well materials structure evidence-based teaching and learning grounded in research, alignment to college and career-ready standards, and supports for all students including multilingual learners. 

EdReports Is a Place to Start

We’re gratified that this approach has resonated with educators. Yet, we strongly believe that our reports are a starting point, not a prescription—and a meets expectations “green” rating should not necessarily mean go. Our reviews are designed to be just one part of a comprehensive, educator-led adoption process. 

For example, in Wisconsin, districts used EdReports to prepare for in-depth publisher discussions. In Fife, Washington, leaders combined EdReports insights with teacher surveys to develop customized selection criteria. In Rhode Island, EdReports reviews were a key resource, but other state-specific criteria were integrated into the selection process as well. We believe the most effective selection processes are those that recognize it isn’t as simple as just choosing a green-rated curriculum—it requires thoughtful, thorough, collaborative work. 

EdReports Remains Committed to Learning and Improving 

As states and districts continue the hard work of selecting materials to help teachers and students thrive, EdReports is committed to continuously improving our supports for the field. Our updated review criteria released in January 2025 are a prime example of how we listen to the field and update our tools to reflect educators’ feedback as well as the latest research and science on learning. 

For example, we have made significant enhancements to our English language arts (ELA) criteria to more tightly align to the science of reading. This includes the introduction of a dedicated indicator to ensure materials are absent of three-cueing. In other words, a curriculum reviewed using our latest criteria cannot achieve an “all-green,” or “meets expectations,” rating if it uses three-cueing. While our ELA criteria have always looked for systematic and research-based explicit phonics instruction, we did not previously have a specific score relating to the absence of three-cueing. Updates such as this underscore our ongoing commitment to responding to educator feedback and ensuring our tools evolve alongside both the latest research and the needs of the field.

We recently rolled out new labels on reports that provide educators with additional context on the purpose of reports, review tool versions, and recommendations for integrating reports into a broader instructional strategy. We also added clearer guidance on how to use our earlier reports, including detailed information on specific improvements we’ve made in ELA, math, and science. We keep every report we’ve published freely available because some of the materials and editions reviewed years ago are still in use. 

Finally, we are a nonprofit and our reports are powered by passionate, dedicated, and very busy educator reviewers. We have limitations in what we can review and how quickly we can move. We’re always willing to consider re-reviewing materials if they have been substantively updated, but that decision is prompted by changes to the materials, not to our review tools. We remain committed to working hard alongside educators to share transparent information and insights that districts and teachers value.   

While we are proud of the progress we have made over the past 10 years, we believe our best report is yet to be written. We are excited for the next decade of working closely with educators to increase demand for and access to high-quality materials—because instructional materials matter to teachers, to students, and to our collective future.