.5 National Curriculum Example: History

As a matter of fact I think it is equally crazy that Columbus sails typically in the fifth grade, he sails again in the eighth grade, he sails again in the eleventh grade and never seems to get anywhere. I would like to have a two year sequence in U.S. history anywhere along the line that would be more powerful than this grade’s five, eight, and eleven stuff that we now typically have. The way we arrived at U.S. history in grades five, eight, and eleven is the fact that we used to have U.S. history in the eighth grade when kids would go out into the world of work after they graduated from elementary school. That is when we put history and civics in the eighth grade. Now they don't go out into the world of work after the eighth grade, but the curriculum is still there. It is conventional; it is historical. Right now we have state examinations that are built on the fact that the eighth grade examination is going to have history in it. There is no reason for it but it is just there. I don't care whether you have a combination of eight and nine or nine and ten or ten and eleven or eleven and twelve, but a two year solid combination of U.S. history next to each other would be much more powerful than grades five, eight, and eleven. Save a year, compact the curriculum, and be more effective. One of the reasons we don't get there is because there is no one in charge of deciding when and where it should be taught. Since there is no one in charge, no one can change it. Mobility makes the agenda more powerful and it makes it more difficult for us to monitor achievement because we never know who to hold accountable. If I am an eighth grade teacher and some of my kids just came into the eighth grade how can you hold me accountable for what my eighth grade kids have or have not learned? Obviously as an eighth grade teacher I have to rely on what has been taught to them before in terms of being able to do my job. If the kids weren't up to speed before then I am not going to be able to do my job. It is not just mobility that defeats our ability to monitor things, it is also the fact that we really haven't figured out how to deal with kids of special needs, not even the ones that stay at home. School curricula should not be one hundred percent national. I would like to have half to two-thirds of the curriculum be national and then you would have a more local curriculum. That's the paradox. If you have the kind of school that I want to have, you'd have more local control than you have now because the local community would have the confidence to do things their own way. They would know they'd be meeting the national criteria that they'd be held accountable for. There would be more accountability and more local control. We'll talk more later about how we can do that and whom we can trust and how we decide who to trust. The final thing is that James Conan, the president of Harvard University in the 1950's, forty years ago said, "The only reason U.S. education hasn't failed given the high rate of mobility is it's been so watered down." The rate of mobility has become even greater since the 1950's, the curriculum is even more watered down and so I hope you have become convinced that mobility is one of the barriers to effective education.

	How would a national curriculum increase local control of schools?	Answer Here
	Mr. Elliot is an eighth grade history teacher who arrives on the first day of school to face a class that has not had history lessons since the fifth grade. How can Mr. Elliot ensure that his curriculum's standards of learning are covered?	Answer Here