Most researchers and policymakers—and perhaps many teachers and principals as well—have concluded that students in American schools should be learning more. Now, steps are being taken to raise expectations. But will that be enough?
As reported in our February issue, groups of experts are engaged in defining content and performance standards in many of the subject areas. Some see this as a sort of national curriculum, while others insist that standards are not a curriculum. I say that if the new standards are widely accepted, they will constitute part of a national curriculum. That's because I think a curriculum has two basic parts: what students are expected to learn, and how they are expected to learn it.
The what and the how of curriculum are both important, but most Americans believe that even if the what is to be established nationally, the how should be determined locally. The processes by which this happens are well established: states and districts draw up curriculum guides and frameworks, publishers produce textbooks, and teachers plan classes. Unfortunately, familiar processes are likely to produce familiar results.
If the new standards serve their intended purpose, they will specify levels of learning far beyond what we have come to regard as acceptable. And those higher levels can be achieved only by changing the conditions that determine how well students learn, especially the factors we call instruction and curriculum.
Perhaps for good reason, most recent school reform efforts have focused not on curriculum but on more global issues, such as governance. Some reformers probably understand that for curriculum to flourish, other matters must be attended to, while others may assume that curriculum development is simply a matter of arranging knowledge into manageable chunks. But a good curriculum is much more than a syllabus; it addresses multiple objectives simultaneously and envisions student experiences that provoke curiosity, fire the imagination, and deepen understanding.
The challenge is to have such powerful curriculums in use in every classroom. In our technological era, mathematics and science are obvious priorities—Zalman Usiskin (p. 14), director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, says, “The United States has the weakest elementary school mathematics curriculum in the world”—but the need is the same in all subjects: high achievement requires high-quality curriculum.
The work of Tom Romberg and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin (p. 4) illustrates how difficult it will be to accomplish this goal. Romberg was a key figure in the development of the mathematics standards produced several years ago by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Now he and his associates are designing and field-testing curriculum materials to help teachers implement the standards. To show how such a curriculum differs from more conventional ones, they describe a lesson that exemplifies the new approach.
Their example shows that the very best curriculum can become quality instruction only if those who teach it are well qualified and trained, and if they have the time and resources to prepare carefully and do the necessary follow-up. Otherwise they have no choice but to stick to the routines by which most teachers get through the day—what Ted Sizer called “Horace's Compromise.”
To summarize, if students are to achieve the higher standards soon to be proclaimed, they will need a strong curriculum. That means we must have the finest possible materials and plans on paper—but also that teachers must be in a position to turn those plans into reality.
