(Note: The following is the first of a series on how local school officials develop new and revised curricula in light of changing standards and technology.)

It’s no longer, “Read chapter 10 and answer all the odd-numbered problems.”
School officials say changing professional standards – not to mention state and federal regulations – have affected the way they review and approve curriculum for today’s students.
Administrators, teachers and parents now spend about three years researching desired outcomes and available resources before submitting a curriculum proposal to the Clarkston Community Schools Board of Education.
John Diliegghio, executive director of secondary education, and Geraldine Moore, executive director of elementary education, introduced teachers who serve as “subject area coordinators” at the Monday, March 24 school board meeting, and discussed the curriculum review procedures.
One of the biggest challenges, they said, was keeping up with changing requirements of the state core curriculum (on which the annual Michigan Education Assessment Program tests are based) and federal mandates such as the new “No Child Left Behind” program.
“It’s ever changing,” Diliegghio said. “It’s almost a moving target these days.”
Even when a curriculum is in place, teachers often must adapt to changing standards.
“Some of the benchmarks that were in ninth grade are being moved to sixth grade,” Moore said. “It’s always a work in progress.”
Over the years have come a change in expectations of student performance. In addition to learning facts, authorities increasingly want to see students use reasoning and application to relate those facts to real life.
Because of this, officials have developed a detailed plan of the expectations before looking for textbooks and other teaching tools.
In each subject area, Diliegghio said there first comes “content standards,” which include “broad statements” of the knowledge students should learn. Then come “benchmarks,” standards by which student learning can be measured at various grade levels.
The curriculum plan also includes “essential learnings” (“What the student needs to do,” said Diliegghio) and “critical practices” (“What the teacher needs to do” to help the students learn).
The plan goes so far as to define the kind of learning desired in an individual exercise or unit. Those stages range from “awareness” to “mastery” with “reinforcement” thrown in, as well.
Dilegghio projected a table to include the above elements in a given grade and subject area.
Is all that time and paperwork necessary? Dilegghio said it’s intended to answer the big question: “What are we doing to best meet the needs of our students?”
A “teaching and learning council” with representatives of elementary, middle and high school personnel, attempts to answer that question before a new curriculum plan is presented to the school board.
When curriculum standards are finalized, teachers search for teaching materials, and it’s more than standard textbooks. Moore said the day is gone when a teacher was told, “Here’s the book; go teach it.” Teachers now use computer software and other multimedia tools based on how they “fulfill benchmarks.”
“The textbook is a tool,” Diliegghio said, but, “It’s one of many tools that can be used to teach the curriculum.”
Sometimes, teachers will “pilot” a chapter from a candidate book to see how it works with students. “It’s a lengthy process,” Diliegghio said.
When new curriculum is approved – or when changing standards require a mid-course adjustment – all teachers must be brought up to speed. That, said Moore, is where staff development comes in.
“It’s critical that we have the opportunity to work with teachers,” Moore said. “We have to give them all the tools they need to meet the needs of the students.”
(Next: The three-year study of Clarkston schools’ mathematics curriculum.)