Curriculum, Curriculum Development, and  Curriculum Planning

Dr. Bob Kizlik

Updated August 9, 2012

This page began on my ADPRIMA site as a single graduate paper on the subject of curriculum utility. That was in 1998. There is so much more to the idea of curriculum and curriculum utility, that the paper, while good, is no longer adequate. It surely was time to move on. Now with the ADPRIMAX site, I have decided to take a little stronger position on this area of education.

I have decided to use this page to provide some short commentary about curriculum, and include links to sites that have useful information. I would like to direct visitors to newspaper articles appearing in such publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Education Week, but their copyright policies make that difficult, if not impossible.

In the years since the page first began, up to the present update to this page, there has been an enormous upheaval in education and the area of curriculum. In some ways, this was no different than the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. There seems to be no end to the amount of tinkering state legislatures, local school boards, and of course, the "learned" national associations of every stripe and color. I have personally seen practically every curriculum "innovation" come and go and be replaced by yet other "innovations" that were touted as "better," "improved," "comprehensive," "relevant," etc. As it turned out, none of all of this effort spanning over 50 years has made much of a difference in what  we think students should learn. Billions of dollars have gone down the tubes implementing new curricula. American students seemingly lag many other nations in standardized test scores in mathematics and science, and despite decades of effort to improve reading, there isn't much to show for it. As far as student's mastery of social studies, history, government, and geography, our efforts have become to butt of late night comedians. Is the problem the curriculum or the delivery of the curriculum via instruction? Or is it both?  I sort of lean toward the curriculum as the source of the problem, but there is no dearth of blame to be placed on inadequate delivery of the curriculum. In a bizarre sense, perhaps it is a good thing that a bad curriculum is implemented poorly. Who knows?  But to get to the point of this page, I will focus on curriculum.

To get started, I must confess my bias. I strongly endorse and believe in the curriculum schema presented by Mauritz Johnson back in 1967. I have a link to it on the ADPRIMAX site. I am also an advocate of the "less is more" approach to curriculum. The ubiquitous, bloated, "infused" curriculum designs are at the root of much of the problem of unsatisfactory student achievement. Learning for mastery is impossible in many, if not most curriculum frameworks.

Early on in my career, I was employed full-time as a curriculum writer and developer.  I came to that position pretty green, but with an open mind, and did a lot of on the job learning. Curriculum development represents, or at least should, valid, reliable processes by which subject matter content is translated into concepts, principles, skills, generalizations, understandings, problem solving abilities, and even values that some group, organization, political entity or association, with power and authority to do so, seeks others to master. Mastery is the key, but to the dismay of many, there are few locks for which the key is relevant. In other words, I don't think subject matter mastery is as important as "coverage."  That alone in my opinion has been one of the greatest failures of education in the past 50 years.

Basically, I believe that curriculum is about ends, not means. When those two concepts are blurred, trouble begins. Put simply, the most useful ideas about curriculum begin with context that curriculum is about what those with power (the state, societal institutions, parents, etc.) want those with limited or no power (students) to learn. This page will also deal with relationships between standards, curriculum, and assessment or testing. I strongly believe there are some serious disconnects in the current paradigm.

Over 50 years ago, Ralph Tyler wrote the classic, Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. His four questions are as relevant today as they were back then. No study of curriculum is complete without consideration of the work by George Beauchamp, especially his classic, Curriculum Theory, and Hilda Taba's Curriculum Development: Theory and Practice.

Below are some links to what I consider worthwhile reading on the subject of curriculum. Be aware that some are more than a few years old, but that in no way diminishes their value.

Mauritz Johnson's Schema for Curriculum
Ralph W. Tyler Publishes Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
Less Is More: The Secret of Being Essential
Toward an Integrated Curriculum
Standards and School Reform: Asking the Essential Questions
Developing Curriculum in Essential Schools
Less Is More: Trimming the Overstuffed Curriculum