Including why they need to give answers. You get certified in Social Studies in some states; you may not know much American history. (I'm certified for SS. American history is my weakest subtopic. And, no, I don't teach SS.)

In the case of 5th grade, which is what he has in his sights, you're often certified as a generalist. K-5, or some such spread. Meaning you are equally able to teach reading in kinder, science in 3rd grade, and social studies in 5th. That makes being an expert hard.

In high school SS is often the easiest certification and coaches often accumulate there. Not as much grading as English, not as much touchy-feely as art and music, not as much lab prep as science. Hence the need for answer keys. Even, sometimes, for obvious things. If anything else, it makes life easy *and* keeps teachers from making stupid mistakes. It also allows for the same or similar answers that are aligned to state standards.

Sadly, as long as we have state assessments that are the word of God when it comes to interpreting state standards, what Pearson does is important. Sickening, but important.

Having reading materials for a "reading block" is a damned good idea. I wish we had science stuff at my school for the kids who are pulled for remedial reading and writing. They can't read non-fiction. Novels, sure--"what do you think and why?" As opposed to non-fiction writing that is terse and fairly non-redundant, so when you finish a paragraph you'd better damned well know what it means before you push on to the next one. If you miss something in "To Kill a Mockingbird," you can intuit much of what must have happened, or construct some sort of mostly coherent meaning. Miss something in a chemistry book and you're often SOL for the rest of the chapter.

My point is that SS (like science) has to and properly does take a back seat, esp. in 5th grade. The kids need to read and be able to read. That's more important than history and science--and, in fact, if their reading is two years behind by 9th grade their history and science *will* suffer a great deal. Because they can't read. I teach science, and when it came time to prioritize subjects for intensive remediation, I put reading and writing at the top; then math; then science or SS. Since I live in TX and juniors have a standardized must-pass test, for juniors the ranking is clear: English, math, history, science. In 5th grade, I think more schools hit up English and math more than SS or history, and those two subjects are the core for all the other "core" subjects later.

All the Pearson crap is handy. It shortens prep time. Less work. Fewer tests to write from scratch. And this matters when you have email, meetings, ARDs, 504s, GT meetings, faculty meetings, PLCs, tech trainings, etc., etc. It also provides uniformity, so "all students get the same education." Instead of having the history expert teach her class history expertly while the English teacher who's teaching SS because the SS teacher is out on child leave shoddily. I've even seen principals who prefer absolute uniformity, because then grading is more uniform and fewer parents call to say, "My kid got a 70 because Mr. Igel's test was harder than Ms. Frosche's."

These days principals are every bit the political animal.

What's their labor history material like?