Curriculum in an Era
of Standards and
Accountability
ED 1010
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Different Definitions of
Curriculum
• The subject matter taught to students
• A course of study, or a systematic
arrangement of courses
• The planned educational experiences
offered by a school
• The experiences students have under
the guidance of the school
• The process teachers go through in
selecting and organizing learning
experiences for their students
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Different Dimensions
of the Curriculum
•
•
•
•
The explicit curriculum
The implicit, or “hidden,” curriculum
The null curriculum
Extracurriculum
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The Explicit Curriculum
at Different Grade Levels
• The current elementary curriculum
emphasizes language arts and math, and
de-emphasizes science, social studies,
art, and music.
• Middle schools attempt to integrate the
curriculum, combining and relating
concepts and skills from different
disciplines.
• The junior high and high school curriculum
focuses on specialized and separate
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content courses.
Where do teachers find
information about the Explicit
Curriculum?
• http://schools.utah.gov/curr/core/
• http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/cours
es/descriptions/index.html
• http://www.nctm.org/
• http://www.ncte.org/
• http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/district/curric/desk.html
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The Implicit Curriculum
• Includes the types of learning children
acquire from the nature and
organization of the classroom as well
as the attitudes and actions of the
teacher.
• Influences the attitudes and values
students take away from school.
• Teachers and their actions exert the
strongest influence on the implicit
curriculum.
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Brainstorm
• What are some things you have
learned in school that were part of
the Implicit Curriculum?
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The Null Curriculum
• Includes topics left out of the explicit
curriculum
• Often includes controversial topics or
ones that teachers don’t know about
or feel uncomfortable teaching
• Currently is strongly influenced by
standards and their corresponding
high-stakes tests
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Brainstorm
• What has been the effect of the Null
Curriculum on your education?
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The Extracurriculum
• Consists of learning experiences that
extend beyond the core of students’
formal studies
• Includes clubs, sports, school plays,
and other activities that don’t earn
academic credit
• Low-ability students, members of
cultural minorities, and students placed
at-risk are less likely to participate in
extracurricular activities.
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The Extracurriculum
(continued)
• Students who participate in extracurricular
activities have:
•
•
•
•
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higher academic performance and attainment
reduced dropout rates
lower rates of substance abuse
less sexual activity among girls
better psychological adjustment, including
higher self-esteem and reduced feelings of
social isolation
• reduced rates of delinquent behavior
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Percentage of public school seniors
reporting selected indicators of school
success by participation and nonparticipation
in extracurricular activities, 1992
Indicators
Participants
No unexcused absences
Never skipped classes
Have a GPA of 3.0 or above
Highest quartile on a
composite math and
reading assessment
Expect to earn a bachelor's
degree or higher
Non-participants
50.4
50.7
30.6
36.2
42.3
10.8
29.8
14.2
68.2
48.2
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http://nces.ed.gov/pubs95/web/95741.asp
Extracurriculum Discussion
• What extracurricular activities were/are
you involved in and how did/does it
impact your education?
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Make a Graphic Organizer
• At your table, make a graphic organizer
depicting your experiences with the
various parts of the curriculum in your
educational experiences.
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Forces That Influence
the Curriculum
• Standards and accountability
• NCLB
• U-PASS
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•
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Professional organizations
The federal government
Textbooks
The professional teacher—perhaps
more than any of the others
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Teacher Influences
• How does the classroom teacher
influence curriculum?
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A National Curriculum
• Common in Europe and other
industrialized countries
• UK
• Japan
• Why not the U.S.?
• Runs counter to state and local control of
education
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A National Curriculum (continued)
• Advocates claim a national curriculum
would:
• Provide coherence and stability across
states
• Create uniform standards across states
• Opponents claim a national curriculum
would:
• Create a massive and unwieldy federal
bureaucracy
• Not be responsive to local needs and
student diversity
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Curriculum Controversies:
Sex Education
• The need for sex education is
suggested by national statistics on
teenage sexuality.
• The majority of parents and the
population at large favor some type of
sex education.
• A small minority of parents favor
abstinence-only sex education.
• Research suggests that abstinence-only
sex education programs do not
increase the likelihood of teenage sex. 21
Curriculum Controversies:
Moral and Character
Education
• Character education stresses, teaches,
and rewards moral values and positive
character traits such as honesty and
citizenship.
• Moral education emphasizes student
decision making and moral reasoning.
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Moral and Character Education
(continued)
• There is general public consensus
about the teaching of these values:
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•
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Honesty
Democracy
Acceptance of diverse peoples
Caring for friends and family members
• These is less national consensus about
the following:
• Homosexuality
• Abortions
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Service Learning – a part of
character education
• Combines service to the community
with content-learning objectives to
promote ethical and moral development
• Becoming more popular, with 25% of
high school students participating
• Courts have upheld the legality of
required service learning courses.
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Curriculum Controversies:
Intelligent Design
• A theory suggesting that our universe is the
product of an intelligent cause or being versus
random, undirected causes such as natural
selection.
• Opponents of intelligent design argue that it is
little more than creationism, a religious view that
the universe was created by God as described
in the Bible.
• The courts have held that formally teaching
intelligent design as an alternative to evolution
violates the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the Constitution.
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Curriculum Controversies:
Censorship
• The following books have been banned from
the public school curriculum at various times:
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark
Twain
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Courts have generally sided against
censorship as a parental right, ruling that
schools and teachers have a right to expose
students to different ideas and points of view.
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Women and Minorities
in the Curriculum
• Critics contend the explicit curriculum overemphasizes the contributions of white males
and has ignored or failed to adequately
represent the contributions of women and
cultural minorities.
• Critics of a white, Eurocentric emphasis in the
curriculum contend that it sends the wrong
message to minority and female students
about their capabilities as humans.
• Efforts are being made to include more
literary works by women and cultural
minorities in the curriculum as well as their
contributions to history.
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