Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Curriculum Evaluator

🎯 Role Definition

The Curriculum Evaluator is responsible for systematically reviewing, validating, and improving instructional materials, learning experiences, and assessment systems to ensure alignment with academic standards, measurable learning outcomes, and organizational goals. This role combines subject-matter expertise, assessment literacy, and data-driven analysis to recommend curriculum improvements, certify pedagogical quality, and provide evidence-based guidance to educators, product teams, and stakeholders in K-12, higher education, or edtech environments.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Classroom Teacher with demonstrated curriculum design experience
Instructional Designer or Learning Experience Designer
Curriculum Specialist or Assessment Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Curriculum Evaluator / Lead Curriculum Analyst
Curriculum Manager / Head of Curriculum & Assessment
Director of Academic Quality, Instruction, or Product (EdTech)
Assessment & Research Lead or Chief Learning Officer (CLO)

Lateral Moves:

Instructional Designer / Learning Experience Designer
Assessment Developer / Psychometrician
Educational Content Strategist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead comprehensive curriculum reviews across grade levels or course sequences, conducting systematic mapping of scope and sequence to state, national, and international standards (e.g., Common Core, NGSS, IB) and documenting alignment gaps with actionable recommendations.
Design and implement rigorous evaluation rubrics and scoring guides to assess instructional materials, unit plans, lesson designs, and digital learning resources for pedagogical quality and equity.
Conduct item-level and performance task analyses of formative and summative assessments to ensure validity, reliability, alignment with learning objectives, and appropriate cognitive demand.
Synthesize quantitative learning analytics and qualitative classroom feedback to produce evidence-based improvement plans, including recommended changes to learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment methods.
Collaborate with subject-matter experts, teachers, and instructional designers to co-develop improved curriculum components and to pilot validated instructional materials in classroom or digital learning environments.
Facilitate alignment workshops and professional learning sessions for educators and product teams to translate evaluation findings into classroom practice and product enhancements.
Manage pilot studies and small-scale implementations of revised curriculum units, collecting metrics on student engagement, learning growth, and implementation fidelity to inform scale decisions.
Draft clear, persuasive evaluation reports and executive summaries for school leaders, product teams, and external stakeholders that include prioritized action items, impact projections, and evidence citations.
Oversee the continuous improvement lifecycle of curriculum resources, including version control, metadata tagging for searchability, and documentation of curricular decisions for accreditation or audit purposes.
Provide technical guidance on assessment design best practices, including blueprinting, item writing, bias review, and accommodations to support diverse learners and ensure fairness.
Conduct gap analyses between instructional materials and district/state standards, producing remediation plans and curricular supplements to address identified shortfalls.
Apply instructional design frameworks (e.g., ADDIE, Backward Design) and learning theory to evaluate and recommend enhancements to lesson structure, scaffolding, and differentiation strategies.
Coordinate with data teams to access and interpret student achievement datasets, disaggregate outcomes by subgroup, and identify inequities that curriculum adjustments should address.
Evaluate the accessibility and cultural responsiveness of curricular content, recommending revisions to improve representation, inclusivity, and relevance for diverse student populations.
Serve as a subject-matter liaison when acquiring or licensing third-party curriculum or edtech content, conducting due diligence reviews and vendor evidence assessments prior to procurement decisions.
Create and maintain a curriculum evaluation dashboard or repository to track revision status, impact metrics, and stakeholder feedback longitudinally.
Lead cross-functional project plans for curriculum initiatives, setting timelines, milestones, dependencies, and resource needs while reporting progress to academic or product leadership.
Conduct literature reviews and benchmark analyses to surface evidence-based instructional strategies and assessment innovations that could be piloted or adopted.
Train internal reviewers and teacher-leaders on rubric application, inter-rater reliability exercises, and standards-based grading to ensure consistent evaluation practices across sites.
Monitor policy and assessment changes at local, state, and federal levels and update curricular recommendations to keep instructional programs compliant and current.
Consult on instructional technology integrations, ensuring that LMS, adaptive platforms, and digital resources support curricular goals and facilitate valid formative assessment.
Lead root-cause analyses following unexpected assessment outcomes to determine whether curricular misalignment, instructional implementation, or assessment design contributed to results.
Provide end-to-end support for accreditation reviews, curriculum audits, and external quality assurance processes, compiling required evidence and responding to reviewer queries.
Mentor junior evaluators and curriculum staff, providing feedback on evaluation methodology, report quality, and stakeholder communication.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Assist procurement teams with scoring matrices and evaluation criteria during vendor selection.
Help craft educator-facing guides, FAQs, and implementation checklists that accompany curriculum rollouts.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Curriculum mapping and standards alignment (Common Core, NGSS, state standards, IB)
Assessment design and test blueprinting (formative and summative)
Learning analytics and basic statistical analysis (cohort comparison, growth metrics)
Rubric development, moderation, and inter-rater reliability processes
Instructional design frameworks: Backward Design, ADDIE, Understanding by Design (UbD)
Experience with LMS and assessment platforms (Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom, LMS APIs)
Familiarity with psychometric concepts and validity/reliability evidence
Educational data tools and visualization (Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau, Power BI)
Accessibility standards and universal design for learning (UDL) application
Experience evaluating edtech products, OER, and third‑party curriculum vendors
Knowledge of culturally responsive pedagogy and bias review processes
Version control and documentation practices for curriculum repositories

Soft Skills

Exceptional written and verbal communication tailored to educators, leaders, and product teams
Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills for workshops and cross-functional collaboration
Analytical mindset with strong critical thinking and problem-solving abilities
Project management: planning, prioritizing, and delivering multi-phase curriculum initiatives on time
Attention to detail and high standards for editorial clarity and evidence-based recommendations
Ability to synthesize complex data into actionable insights and clear next steps
Coaching and mentoring capabilities to build evaluator and teacher capacity
Adaptability to changing policy landscapes and diverse educational contexts
Diplomacy and negotiation skills when reconciling competing stakeholder priorities
Empathy for classroom realities and student experience when recommending curricular change

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Education, Curriculum & Instruction, Instructional Design, Educational Psychology, Measurement & Evaluation, or related field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree (M.Ed., M.A. in Curriculum & Instruction, MAE), Ed.M., Ed.D., or Master's in Measurement/Assessment preferred for senior roles.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Curriculum & Instruction
Instructional Design / Learning Sciences
Educational Measurement & Evaluation
Educational Technology
Teaching & Education

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

3–7 years of professional experience in curriculum evaluation, instructional design, assessment development, teaching, or educational research.

Preferred:

5+ years with demonstrable experience leading curriculum reviews, assessment design, standards alignment, and working with K-12 or higher education stakeholders; experience in edtech product evaluation or cross-functional academic/product teams is a strong plus.
Experience with data-driven intervention design, pilot implementations, and measurable impact reporting.
Prior classroom teaching experience or school-based leadership (e.g., curriculum coach, instructional specialist) highly valued.

If you want this tailored to a specific setting (K-12 district, higher education, corporate training, or edtech product team), I can adapt responsibilities, keywords, and salary range to match that context.