Why Curricular Changes Are often Confused with School Reform

Curriculum in the decentralized U.S. school system of nearly 13, 000 school districts in 50 states has four layers.* The top layer of this structure is the intended (or official) curriculum. After extensive deliberation and committee meetings, state and district officials periodically publish curricular frameworks and courses of study in academic subjects from kindergarten through high school. These officials expect teachers to put into practice the recently-minted intended curriculum.* Consider the official science curriculum in California. The science framework lays out content standards, grade by grade, as to what teachers should teach and what students should learn. Of course, over time, there have been revisions in the state framework (scienceframework-1). These California science standards are connected to textbooks that teachers use in their elementary and secondary school lessons and, further, these science standards are linked to the California Standards Test given at grades…