New curriculum shows remarkable results.

Bright IDEA 1, a new curriculum that involved more than 900 kindergarten, first and second graders in regular classrooms in five Title 1 schools in North Carolina from 2001 through 2004, was recently awarded a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand to other districts. It's not too surprising, since all kindergarten Bright IDEA classrooms scored in the 99th percentile on the state literacy assessment and achievement among African-American and Hispanic students was raised close to the level of white and Asian students. Also, one school's Bright IDEA second-grade students scored in the 80th percentile on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills Reading exam compared with scores in the 39th percentile for non-Bright IDEA children. Bright IDEA is revolutionary for several reasons: It was built on advanced research and it trains teachers how to design concept-based curriculum and to change the classroom environment to meet the learning styles of all children. DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION spoke with Margaret Gayle, one of the Bright IDEA principal designers, to get more insight into the programs.

How were the teachers trained?

It's not an add-on program; we paid for substitutes and trained about 130 teachers and principals at the same time. We worked with them for about 20 days and then they practiced what they learned. During the summer, they spend about five days with us to develop curriculum units.

What is concept-based curriculum?

Most state standards include concepts and topics. We train our teachers to unpack the big ideas in the standards--the concepts that need to be studied--and focus on them in-depth, rather than on the hundreds of facts.

I've read that the Bright IDEA teachers' job satisfaction has skyrocketed. Why do you think that is?

They have more control over what they're doing. A lot of these teachers have creative ideas but had no format in which to practice them. We teach them how to integrate all that they've learned. Our staff development is a comprehensive approach to integrating all of the best practices into one process. The teachers get excited about watching children respond to what they're doing.

I also read that the children's social and attention problems were reduced.

Several teachers in the program say the curriculum pretty much takes away any discipline problems. I think it's because the kids are on task, move around a lot and are involved in things that are exciting to learn about.