Curriculum, Standards, and Testing 6 © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved. McGraw-Hill

CURRICULAR TIME LINE 6.1 TIME EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY FOCUS OF CURRICULUM Seventeenth Century “Two Rs” Secondary education for males only; reading and religion Eighteenth Century Life in the present Reading, religion, morality, writing, and arithmetic; vocational skills; academy open to females Nineteenth Century Secular education Secondary education in Latin or English curriculum Early Twentieth Century Progressive education Creative expression; junior high school developed; secondary education for all students

CURRICULAR TIME LINE (continued) 6.2 TIME EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY FOCUS OF CURRICULUM 1940s-1960s Discipline-oriented Congress funded programs in science, math, languages, and guidance 1960s-1970s Social concern and humanistic education Gender-based courses; multiethnic curricula 1980s Back to basics Academic subjects emphasized; increased discipline; elimination of electives; competency exams 1990s Widening of the core curriculum Expansion of the core curriculum to include more people of color and women Current _____________ ________________

Student-Generated Responses: What else did you learn in school? HIDDEN CURRICULUM? 6.3 Student-Generated Responses: What else did you learn in school? GRADE LEVEL Elementary Middle High School “HIDDEN” LESSONS

THE IMPORTANCE OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES AND ACADEMIC SUBJECTS 6.4 Do you consider extracurricular activities as important as the academic subjects, or do you consider them as only a supplement to the academic subjects? National Totals % No Children in School % Public School Parents % As important as academic subjects 42 40 46 A supplement to academic subjects 56 58 52 Don’t know 2 SOURCE: Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup (2000), The 32nd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kpol0009.htm#1a

SHAPING THE CURRICULUM 6.5 Figure 6.1

WHO AND WHAT SHAPE THE CURRICULUM? 6.6 Student-Generated Responses WHO & WHAT Students Parental and community groups Teachers Administrators Federal government State government Local government Colleges and universities Standardized tests Education commissions and committees Professional organizations Special interest groups EXAMPLES OF HOW

TEXTBOOK ADOPTION STATES 6.7 SOURCE: Association of American Publishers, Washington, DC, 2011. Figure 6.2

Student-Generated Responses FORMS OF BIAS 6.8 BIAS Invisibility Stereotyping Imbalance/selectivity Unreality Fragmentation/isolation Linguistic bias Cosmetic bias Student-Generated Responses EXAMPLES

STATES THAT ADOPTED THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS 6.9 SOURCE: http://www.corestandards.org/in-the-states. Figure 6.3

QUESTIONS ABOUT COMMON CORE STANDARDS 6.10 Is there consensus on a single set of core standards for all states? Are all states onboard? Do the standards reflect an appropriate direction for schools? Is a single set of common core standards desirable? Are common core standards the right direction for America’s schools? What will testing be like for these standards?

SEVEN REASONS WHY STANDARDIZED TESTS ARE NOT WORKING 6.11 At-risk students placed at greater risk Lower graduation rates Higher test scores do not mean more learning Standardized testing shrinks the curriculum Test errors Teacher stress What’s worth knowing?

TEACHING TO THE TEST 6.12 SOURCE: Education Week, Quality Counts, 2001.

TEACHER STRESS 6.13 SOURCE: http://ganesh.ed.asu.edu/aims/view_image.php?image_id572&grade_range_id53 . See also Tirupalavanam Ganesh, “Held Hostage by High-Stakes Testing: Drawing as Symbolic Resistance,” Teacher Education Quarterly (2002). Figure 6.4

CAMPBELL’S LAW 6.14 “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.” —Donald T. Campbell

DO YOU BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION? 6.15 SOURCE: “Trend Lines: Acceptance of Evolution,” Washington Post, January 16, 2007. Figure 6.5

EXAMPLES OF CENSORSHIP 6.16 Mary Rodgers’ Freaky Friday: “Makes fun of parents and parental responsibility.” Plato’s Republic: “This book is un-Christian.” Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days: “Very unfavorable to Mormons.” William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Too violent for children.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment: “Serves as a poor model for young people.” Herman Melville’s Moby Dick: “Contains homosexuality.” Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl: “Obscene and blasphemous.” E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web: “Morbid picture of death.” J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: “Subversive elements.” Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: “Racist.” Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: “Racism, insensitivity, and offensive language.” Webster’s Dictionary: “Contains sexually explicit definitions.” Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, for being anti-ethnic and anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to the age group. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy for the political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence. Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories for occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence.

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ON COMPUTER USE 6.17 SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2009 (issued April 2010). Figure 6.6