I don't actually think our district is top-notch but it is trying to bring our kids into the 21st century. The revamping of elementary and middle school science curriculum probably started almost a decade ago when they began administering science assessments for 5th and 8th grades.
It is truly appalling to hear about the lack of modern science education in elementary and even middle schools in some places. In some districts, elementary science education is pure memorization with zero analysis. Sometimes, the stuff that they are teaching the kids are out of date or irrelevant.
The reason why it will take our district another couple of years to fully implement NGSS across all grades is that it does take a lot of time and work to develop new coherent curriculum for all the courses.
I still recall reading the transcript of a town hall meeting between teachers and our superintendent from two years ago (mid-year)prior to the implementation of Common Core the following school year. One of the teachers complained that the district should just use canned curriculum from one of the major publishers because they are easier and would allow more time for the teachers to learn the curriculum before having to teach it. I don't recall the exact answer but the idea was that it is more important that the curriculum should be high quality and that additional teacher training days would be provided as the curriculum is developed.
