Look into the following article:
Porter, A. C., Polikoff, M. S., & Smithson, J. (2009). Is There a de Facto National Intended Curriculum? Evidence From State Content Standards. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(3), 238-268.
In this journal article published by Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, authors Porter, Polikoff, and Smithson attempt to determine whether there exists a de facto national curriculum as a result of states’ individually mandated standards policies. In their research, the authors sought to elucidate the similarities and differences among states academic content standards and, in doing so, they sought to determine whether or not there exists a de facto national curriculum that is taught to in every state. Because academic content standards are published statements about what teachers should be teaching in each state, the authors of this article chose to examine states’ standards in lieu of other possibly important considerations. One such consideration that the authors pointed to but did not research is that of the similarities and differences among teachers’ actual instructional practices, which could – and do – differ from published standards. In their research, the authors found that there is great variance among states’ standards and that, cumulatively, there exists no de facto national intended curriculum. The authors found only moderate to low alignment between states’ content standards.
Using the methodology they did, the authors were able to quantify the extent to which there is alignment among states’ individually mandated standards. The authors looked at the academic content standards of 31 states, and they focused on grades K-8, paying particular attention to grades 4 and 8. They used an alignment index score that ranges from 0 (no alignment) to 1.0 (perfect alignment), and they found alignments at the fourth and eighth grades to be in the 0.20s. The authors found higher alignment scores when they aggregated standards across grade levels, and aggregating helped them to account for similar standards that states have mandated at different grade levels. However, even in aggregating, the authors found that the highest alignment between any two states was 0.62. For the purpose of answering the question they posed, the authors did well to concisely determine that there exists no de facto national curriculum as a result of states’ individually mandated standards policies. Evidence of other considerations – such as the one stated above – could and should be reviewed in order to best answer the question of whether there exists a de facto national curriculum generally, but the authors clearly stated that such considerations are beyond the scope of this particular article.
Ultimately, and perhaps most importantly, the authors could have done more to elaborate on the policy implications of their research. The authors pointed to the idea that states’ standards rights allow individual states to be able to design curriculum around localized needs, and they also pointed to an idea that the small areas of standards alignment among states could be used to build common curriculum. However, the authors quickly pointed to both ideas in the final paragraph of this article, and implications need to be more completely explored. Is the implication that we should have a more common curriculum, or is it that such a common curriculum would invariably be too burdensome? Or is that too big of a question?
Posted by Parker Fulton
Credit to The Journal of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis