In brief
- Season 2 of Sold a Story has reopened an old argument: is scripted instruction a gift to struggling students or a pedagogy of compliance?
- I saw this up close. I coached teachers at a school that lost its scripted program, Success for All, when the funding ended.
- A script carries part of the model and the planning. No script carries all of it, so something has to carry the rest.
- A rollout starts to feel like compliance when following the plan matters more than what teachers and students show you about how it is working.
The Argument Season 2 Reopened
Season 2 of Sold a Story, from APM Reports and host Emily Hanford, follows Zig Engelmann and Direct Instruction, his family of scripted programs. The season has people talking, and the conversation has split into two camps.
One camp says scripted teaching gets no respect. Writing in The 74, Robert Pondiscio describes how a script gets treated as surrender, "suitable perhaps for novices but beneath the dignity of real teachers."
The other camp sees something deeper than disrespect. In a guest essay on Larry Ferlazzo's EdWeek blog, special education administrator Nathan Parham argues that the efficiency at the heart of these programs rests on a narrow view of how children learn. He points out that scripted, compliance-oriented approaches tend to be sold to schools serving the most vulnerable students. And he questions whether raising test performance should be the goal for children who already face structural barriers, or whether schools should aim higher. Parham is fair about what he saw. He remembers a fifth grader in a reading group with younger students who was engaged and clearly felt competent.
I take Parham's concern seriously. Schools serving our most vulnerable students do tend to get things done to them: mandates, pacing calendars, programs adopted over teachers' heads. But I want to ask a different question. When a program feels like compliance, what made it feel that way? My answer, from my own experience, is that it was rarely the script. It was what came with the script, or what didn't.
A School That Ran on a Script
Early in my coaching career, I was recruited to a Title I school serving a very high number of English learners. For years the school had used Success for All. It is not Engelmann's program. It is a distinct whole-school model, but it shares some of Direct Instruction's features: explicit teaching, scripted lessons, and tight pacing.
At our school, the pacing was close enough that, as the teachers described it to me, people would walk the building with stopwatches. If one classroom was at a certain point in the script, the next classroom had better be at a similar point.
Students were grouped by reading level across grades. A fifth grader and a third grader might sit in the same reading group, because that group matched what both of them needed. It is the same picture Parham remembers. And at our school, it worked. The students made progress.
By the time I arrived, the teachers on staff valued the program's consistency. They knew what to teach, they knew their students were getting instruction matched to their level, and they could see the results.
When the Funding Ended
The district had piloted Success for All and paid for it. When the pilot ended, the school knew it could not afford to fund the program on its own over the long term. So leadership made the difficult decision to change curriculum while the school still had funding for instructional coaches. It moved to EngageNY for ELA in grades three through five and filled two coaching positions to support the change. I was hired to coach third and fifth grade, and a different coach was hired for fourth grade.
The shift was bigger than a new set of materials. EngageNY had its own detailed lessons and teacher prompts, but the school ended cross-grade reading groups. Every teacher now had the full range in one room, from students who did not yet know their CVC words to students reading on a fifth-grade level. Teachers had to adapt grade-level lessons for all of them.
People outside the classroom have no idea how much planning a good lesson takes. Even with a curriculum, teachers spend a lot of time behind the scenes adjusting it to the students in front of them. Success for All had carried much of that load through its grouping and pacing. EngageNY's lessons carried some of it. The rest landed on the teachers.
What Carried the Rest
The school made one decision that mattered more than any other. It paid to buy out teacher preps, so each grade-level team could meet with me at least twice a week.
Those meetings became a small PLC with a simple cycle. We studied the upcoming lesson together. We talked it out and chose the instructional strategies we wanted to use. Teachers taught it and gave a formative assessment. Then we came back, looked at what students did, and adjusted the next lesson. Our scope and sequence started changing weekly, based on how students responded.
EngageNY did not cover everything our students needed, so we planned supplemental lessons together, and I wrote them.
That last part was a weakness of mine. I knew how much teachers had on their plates, so I carried more of the planning than I should have. The cycle worked, but much of it ran through one coach.
The Day I Asked for Feedback
My fifth-grade team did not want me there at first. Two of the teachers had both applied for the instructional coach position I was hired into, and the rest of the team took their cue from them.
The pushback came to a head over one instructional strategy. It was a way to support a wide range of readers with a grade-level text during whole-group instruction. The teacher modeled first, students read with a partner, and then they finished the text independently. The team kept telling me their students were too academically low to use it. So I asked if they would be willing to let me model it first. I would teach the strategy in their classrooms, with their students and the curriculum. They would watch, take notes, and tell me what worked and what didn't. If it still wasn't working after that, I would drop it and never mention it again.
They agreed. Administration found coverage for their classes so they could come watch. Afterward we sat down to debrief, and they gave me the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The strategy worked with their students, and the team kept using it. The strategy was itself a gradual release for students: I do, we do, you do. The teachers needed the same thing.
What changed the team was not the strategy alone. I had put myself in the position I had been asking them to take: teaching in front of colleagues and hearing their honest feedback. They also had a real say. If the strategy failed, it was gone. After that, the pushback stopped, and we started working together.
By the end of the year, the fifth-grade team no longer needed the in-depth support I had been giving them. One of the teachers who had been skeptical of me took over leading the team, and I moved to support another grade level. Fifth grade also showed the clearest improvement that year, both in how the team collaborated and in student data.
Not every team moved that fast. Third grade needed ongoing support from me the following year. Fourth grade needed a different kind of facilitation, and I moved to support them the next year. Teams reach independence at different speeds, and support should follow the student work, not the calendar.
What Compliance Actually Is
Here is what I think my time there shows.
A script carries part of the model and the planning. No script carries all of it. For years, Success for All carried much of it through its grouping and pacing. EngageNY's lessons carried less, and a coach and a twice-weekly team meeting carried the rest. That worked, but it depended on one person and on funding the school could lose.
Every rollout owes teachers the same three things: a model to see, practice, and feedback. Research on effective professional development points to these same features, including models of effective practice, coaching, and feedback (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017). They matter whether the curriculum is scripted or not. Every grade level from third to fifth still used the EngageNY script. Teams adjusted the script and the activities based on how students were learning and on each teacher's skill level. My fifth-grade team did not need the script taken away. They needed to see the strategy taught with their own students, and they needed their feedback to count.
So here is my argument. Compliance is not the script. The turning point for my team came when teachers could see the strategy with their own students, examine what happened, and help decide whether to keep using it. A rollout starts to feel like compliance when following the plan matters more than what teachers and students show you about how it is working. The stopwatches at our school are an example. The guidance was detailed and the results were real, but the implementation put adherence first. A scope and sequence that is set in stone is another. Once our teams could respond to what students showed them, our EngageNY scope and sequence changed weekly. A lesson the scope and sequence said would take one day often took two or three, because students needed more scaffolded support and practice. Compliance can happen with a script, and it can happen without one.
That also changes how I hear Parham's question about aiming higher. My fifth-grade team believed their students were too low for the strategy. That belief came from care, not from low expectations, but it was holding the students back. The students answered it themselves once someone showed the teachers what was possible. Teaching vulnerable children to do hard things well is aiming higher.
Where Leadership Fits
In most schools where I have implemented PLCs, school leadership has not been heavily involved in the process. I do not think that is because leaders do not care. Most rollouts never give leaders a role beyond the purchase, so they do not take one. That was a huge aha moment for me during my third PLC rollout. The school leadership team needed its own PLC about the PLCs at the school.
Yet the moment that changed my fifth-grade team depended on an administrator. Someone had to find coverage so teachers could leave their classrooms and watch a lesson. That is what leadership involvement looks like at its most practical: protecting the time for teachers to see the model, practice it, and give feedback.
I would go a step further. I think more administrators should model instruction themselves. One reason is that it keeps leaders close to what teaching is actually like, and teaching now is vastly different from what it was before COVID. Another is the same reason modeling worked for me with my fifth-grade team. When a leader teaches in front of teachers and asks for their honest feedback, the leader takes the same risk they are asking teachers to take. That builds a kind of trust a memo or a walkthrough cannot.
A rollout is change management, and change management is leadership work. I made that case in Change Management Is Not a Buzzword. It's What PLCs Are Built For.
From One Coach to Many
A few years later, at another school, I started building what became VOYAGE Horizons. It began in 2020, during COVID, and it grew from what I learned in that rollout.
Budgets shift, and there will not always be an instructional coach to give ongoing support. So the capacity has to live in the teachers. In VOYAGE, grade-level teams choose the facilitators they want, and those facilitators are trained to lead the cycle. School leadership is part of the process from the start, because this is change management.
My fifth-grade team found its leader partly by luck. VOYAGE is built so that schools do not have to wait for luck.
The Test for Your Next Rollout
Before asking whether teachers are following a new curriculum, ask this:
What did we ask teachers to do, and what did we give them a chance to see, practice, and get feedback on before we asked them to do it alone?
Questions for your leadership team:
- In our last rollout, what carried the model and the planning for teachers, and what was left for them to carry alone? If it was a script, a coach, or a grant, what happens when it leaves?
- When teachers pushed back, did anyone offer to show them, with their own students, and let their feedback decide?
- What role did school leadership play after the purchase? What would protecting time for modeling and feedback look like here?
If you are not sure where your PLCs are breaking down, the PLC Health Check can help you find the weak condition.
Common Questions
Is Success for All the same as Direct Instruction? No. Direct Instruction, with capital letters, refers to Zig Engelmann's scripted programs. Success for All is a distinct whole-school model. It shares some of Direct Instruction's features, including explicit teaching, scripted lessons, and tight pacing.
What makes a curriculum rollout feel like compliance? A rollout starts to feel like compliance when following the plan matters more than what teachers and students show you about how it is working. Rigid pacing checks and a scope and sequence that cannot change are two common signs.
What should teachers get before they implement a new curriculum on their own? Three things: a model to see, a chance to practice, and feedback on their attempt. Ask: what did we ask teachers to do, and what did we give them a chance to see, practice, and get feedback on before we asked them to do it alone?
How can a PLC support a new curriculum? A PLC can run a simple cycle: study the upcoming lesson, choose strategies, teach it, check student work with a formative assessment, debrief, and adjust the next lesson. Over time, trained teacher facilitators can lead that cycle without a coach.
What is the school leader's role in a curriculum rollout? Leaders protect the time for modeling, practice, and feedback, for example by covering classes so teachers can watch a lesson. A leadership team can also hold its own PLC about the school's PLCs, and leaders can model instruction themselves.
References
- Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective teacher professional development. Learning Policy Institute.
- Hanford, E. (2026). Sold a Story, Season 2: What Happened to Teaching. APM Reports.
- Parham, N. (2026, October 27). What 'Sold a Story' misses about Direct Instruction. Guest essay in L. Ferlazzo, Classroom Q&A, Education Week.
- Pondiscio, R. (2026, October 16). Can 'Sold a Story' change how America teaches? The 74.