Education Week lists seven trends in curriculum in 2024, and how they might affect teaching and learning in 2025.
1) Teaching religion debate continues
This year, the issue resurfaced in several state-level curriculum decisions.
The Texas state board of education voted in November to approve a new curriculum that includes Bible stories in elementary school reading lessons. It’s not required that schools take up the materials, which feature, for example, lengthy passages about the Last Supper and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. But districts do receive additional funding for using them.
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters called on schools to put a Bible in every classroom. State guidance directed teachers of students in grades 5-12 to incorporate the text’s “influence on Western civilization” and “impact on American history” into lessons.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that academic study of the Bible is allowed in public schools, though mandated readings for the purpose of prayer are not.
During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools, in response to a Louisiana law that required this. A federal judge later struck down that law as unconstitutional.
2) Anti-critical-race-theory legislation loses steam
In the past three years, 18 states passed laws or initiated other policies that limit how teachers approach “divisive concepts”— issues such as race or gender. Some laws also explicitly banned teaching “critical race theory,” which analyzes structural racism in law and policy.
Political energy around this issue may be waning as teachers adjust to the laws, Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, told Education Week in March.
Still, “parents’ rights” groups continue to fight for the ability to shape curriculum, and more states have passed measures requiring districts to notify parents if children are using pronouns that differ from their sex assigned at birth. Attempts to ban certain books from school libraries are still growing in number.
3) Nation’s largest school district adopts the “science of reading”
At the beginning of the 2024-25 school year, all New York City’s 1,000+ elementary schools were using one of three curricula to align instructional practice with the “science of reading”—the body of scientific knowledge that supports how children learn to read.
Schools can’t use other core programs, including one that has long been popular citywide—the Units of Study for Teaching Reading. Versions of the program have been criticized for omitting or minimizing instruction in research-backed foundational skills such as phonics
4) Struggling teen readers command more attention
Middle and high school teachers usually don’t have training on how to address student shortcomings in the basic building blocks of reading, and secondary schools aren’t often equipped to support students with profound reading gaps.
Teachers of these students “are sounding the alarms based on their experience day in and day out in the classroom, and yearning for administrator support,” says Rachel Manandhar, an education specialist and literacy interventionist at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, Calif.
5) How to teach math question divides educators
Teaching math often focuses on memorization and repeated practice or prioritizes conceptual understanding and asks students to problem-solve.
Students need a bit of both to learn math well, according to research. Fluency with math procedures like addition and multiplication, and deep conceptual understanding of the rules that underlie these procedures, develop in tandem and support each other.
How to sequence instruction, and where to place emphasis, are open questions.
Data from the EdWeek Research Center shows about half of teachers, principals, and district leaders surveyed in April agreed that students learn math best through practicing procedures, rather than solving big, complex problems. The other half disagreed.
New York City schools are using a new curriculum, Illustrative Mathematics, which is oriented around problem-solving and student discussion. Implementing the program will cost the city $34 million over the next five years.
6) Workforce readiness is top of mind
Career and technical education were mentioned in at least 37 governors’ state of the state addresses last year.
President-elect Trump’s pick for education secretary, Linda McMahon, has also expressed an interest in workforce development. McMahon has tweeted about the Swiss apprenticeship model as a “pathway to successful careers.”
7) Fall off in discussing politics in the classroom
Every election cycle, social studies teachers focus on explaining the process, rather than endorsing specific politicians; provide primary sources; and ask students to come to their own conclusions.
But a July EdWeek Research Center survey of K-12 teachers found that most—58 percent—said they weren’t planning to talk about the election with students. About half of that number said the election was unrelated to their subject, but 22 percent worried that it could lead to parent complaints, and 19 percent said they didn’t think their students could discuss it in a “respectful manner.”
Some students have said they’re less interested in discussing politics in the classroom. The day after the 2024 election, reactions were muted.
“Sometimes it’s a little tiring because we can’t vote yet,” Jimmy Gallivan, a 16-year-old junior in Somers, N.Y., told Education Week in October. “For me at least, I want to focus on my academics, I want to make sure I’m learning a lot…”
But Gen Z is more likely than adults in any other generation to say that their schools didn’t adequately prepare them to be active and engaged citizens. It’s not clear what this disconnect means for the future of civics education.
Education Week
