The adoption of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) — materials that have been rated as fully meeting the expectations of EdReports’s college- and career-ready standards — is a critical lever that districts and schools can use to support student learning. The uptake of these materials, especially in mathematics, has become increasingly common in U.S. schools.
In this report, the authors use data from two RAND American Educator Panel (AEP) surveys — one of public school districts and one of public school principals — administered during the 2024–2025 school year to explore the adoption of HQIM in math. First, the authors explore how districts and schools make math curriculum adoption decisions and how those processes vary by district size, which, they hypothesize, is indicative of the number of staff and other centralized resources available to support the efficient adoption of HQIM and related PL. Second, they examine how characteristics of curriculum adoption processes, such as the length of time or included stakeholders, relate to the selection of HQIM for math. Finally, they describe the professional learning that is purchased from vendors alongside math curriculum materials and the depth of support or intensity of that professional learning. They present findings from the AEP surveys and their interviews with district leaders and principals and explore how responses differ by district size.
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