correlation jobs

The most obvious things are often right in front of my nose and I can't see them. I guess I don't focus on them because I'm distracted by so many other things going on in the world around me. (having four kids at home will do that...)

Correlating work for the education market is a completely obvious option I never focused on. Never even considered it until I read a wonderfully helpful article on the Writing for the Education Market blog.

Correlating is sometimes called "alignment", because the work involves aligning curriculum, activities, and other content to state standards. Everyone who works in the education market has to deal with state standards and alignment at some point. Some education market writing assignments I've worked on were already aligned, so, I was asked to create content - such as test questions, test prep workbook content, teacher resource activity pages - for each standard.

I've worked as a literacy coach all year. Much of what I do is think about what the state and national standards are, and work with teachers to make sure their students are presented with excellent, relevant instruction. I sit with teachers and look at whether time spent during the language arts block reflects the education standards of the district, state, etc. Two big questions schools ask before making curriculum choices are: is it research-based?, and, does it correlate with our standards?

A good place to check out how state standards affect the publishing world are company websites. I have written two teacher resource books for Carson-Dellosa, and just noticed their State Standards search page this week. If you have a favorite publisher, find out whether they align their products to state standards. If they do, they have to pay someone to do the correlating. If you are looking for a new source of income, and have education-related experience, ask your editor if this might be an option for you. I plan to spend some time looking into this more thoroughly over the next couple months, and will let you know what I find out.

Here are some other companies I'm going to check into for correlating jobs. I don't know what will happen since this is a new area for me, but I'll let you know:

Six Things
Red Rover
Quarasan Group
Waterloo Education

Do you have any experience as a paid correlator? Have any tips or suggestions to share?

And, while you are visiting Laura at her Writing for the Education Market blog, be sure to sign up for her email option. She posts good job leads for the education market.

Cheers,
Heidi