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  • Everyone is telling teachers what to teach

    from the September 08, 2005 edition -
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0908/p12s01-legn.h tml



    Everyone is telling teachers what to teach



    Even in an era of standardized tests, state governments and others are
    adding mandatory subjects to schools.

    By Stacy A. Teicher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor


    >From urban Philadelphia to rural Illinois, the new school year also
    means new requirements for what, precisely, students must learn. In
    addition to their normal English classes, science labs, and test-prep
    work, more will be studying topics such as African history, personal
    finance, and genocide in Bosnia and Rwanda.

    Curriculum mandates sometimes come top-down from state
    legislatures. Others spring from grass-roots demands on school
    boards. They're the product of a wrestling match of sorts - between
    American education's tradition of local control and the growing
    movement to standardize subject matter for the sake of global
    competitiveness.

    When the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
    periodically shows US students performing dismally on a certain
    subject, "usually there's a hue and outcry," says Peggy Altoff,
    president-elect of the National Council for the Social Studies
    (NCSS). That can spur state lawmakers to try to expand the curriculum
    in, say, history or geography. But in addition, "states [or local
    districts] begin to pick up the mantle for certain issues ... when a
    certain segment of the population begins to say, 'There's a neglect
    here,' " she says.

    Take the City of Brotherly Love: It's the first public school district
    to require all high school students entering this September to take a
    year-long course on African and African-American history before they
    graduate.

    Unanimously approved by Philadelphia's five-member School Reform
    Commission, the mandate was in some ways 40 years in the making. In
    the 1960s, local activists won the fight for more Afrocentric
    curriculum development, but the courses have been offered as electives
    in just a portion of the city's schools. Now a college-level textbook
    has been adapted and instructors in all 60 high schools have been
    trained to teach the required course.

    The textbook starts with the history of African civilizations and then
    moves to the Americas. "It puts in context that the slave trade was a
    period in our history - we did not enter humankind as slaves," says
    Sandra Dungee Glenn, a member of the reform commission. She recalls
    attending high school in the district in the 1970s, when she says she
    rarely saw her heritage reflected in her textbooks.

    Not a total solution, but it's a start

    About 65 percent of the district's students are African-American, but
    proponents of the course say it's equally important for others,
    because of the reverberations US racial history has to this day. The
    move wasn't universally applauded, however. John Perzel (R), the
    Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, sent a letter to
    the commission this summer expressing concerns raised in his district,
    which is largely white and includes immigrants from Russia, Turkey,
    and other countries.

    "While I believe it is appropriate to acknowledge ... cultural
    diversity within the district's curriculum, mandating an entire year
    of study focusing on a single constituency appears unnecessary," the
    letter reads in part. "A more prudent course might be to develop a
    multipronged course of study focusing on the many cultures embodied
    within the school district."

    Ms. Glenn says the bulk of response has been positive and the decision
    is firm. "I don't believe that it's a silver bullet, but it is an
    important component [of reforming the city's schools]," she says.

    Teachers' responses usually depend on how much they're consulted on
    new requirements. But even if they agree the subject matter is
    important, covering a long list of specific topics as well as
    attending to individual students is becoming much more difficult.

    It's even more difficult as they face simultaneous demands to focus
    more on core skills such as reading and math, which have to be tested
    under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

    "The teacher is caught [in] this whirling cycle," says Bruce Damasio,
    a history and economics teacher in Maryland and an NCSS board
    member. "You're supposed to meet this standard, and at the same time
    this topic du jour has come up ... and you've got 180 days to get all
    these things done."

    Illinois takes on genocide

    For political leaders, curriculum is one way to signal values. In
    August, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed a law expanding the
    state's 15-year-old mandate on Holocaust education. Now all students
    will learn not just about Nazi atrocities but also about genocide in
    places such as Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sudan.

    "We have to be sure [students] understand that racial, national,
    ethnic, and religious hatred can lead to horrible tragedies," Governor
    Blagojevich said in a press statement. "These are not just the
    problems of our parents' or grandparents' generations. We ... [need
    to] encourage students to fight intolerance and hatred wherever they
    see it." Local districts will determine the details of how the subject
    will be taught at various grade levels.

    Some efforts, on the other hand, never see the light of day. In
    Maryland in the late 1990s, lawmakers wanted to mandate more teaching
    about the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800s. Because the state has
    a tradition of leaving curriculum matters primarily to local
    districts, Ms. Altoff appeared before the legislature to warn against
    setting a precedent with something so specific. In the end, schools
    were given the option of using a suggested curriculum.

    Creating commissions is one way states can influence curriculum
    without going so far as to issue an edict. In New York this summer,
    the announcement of an Amistad Commission to determine if there needs
    to be more content on slavery and African-Americans' contributions set
    off a controversy; it's unclear how many educators will be among the
    group's 19 political appointees. (The Amistad, for which the committee
    was named, was a slave ship. Setting out from Havana in 1839, the
    ship's cargo of 53 enslaved Africans took over the ship and sailed to
    Long Island, New York, where the mutineers were put on trial and
    eventually set free.)

    New Jersey also has an Amistad Commission, one of many groups in the
    state charged with promoting better understanding of a variety of
    issues and ethnic groups. The state's Holocaust Commission is paired
    with a requirement that the subject be taught in public schools.

    But others, like the Italian Commission, created in 2002, prepare
    curriculum that is strictly voluntary.

    Persuading school districts and teachers to opt in requires some
    innovative lesson plans and training, so they can see how the
    materials meet state standards, says Roger Marinzoli, executive
    director of the New Jersey Italian Commission.

    Italian-Americans make up about 25 percent of the state, he says, but
    "the attempt is not to make this a flag-waving exercise.... You have
    to make it appealing to a broad spectrum."

    The group's lessons cover the US internment of Germans, Japanese, and
    Italians during World War II and address ethnic stereotyping. It also
    offers a language-arts segment linking Da Vinci's
    stream-of-consciousness writings to existing lessons on novelist James
    Joyce.

    Feedback has been so good, Mr. Marinzoli says, that schools as far
    away as Sicily have asked to use some of the curriculum.

    Textbooks can be quickly adapted

    Because textbooks are often updated every few years and customized for
    states, the steady drumbeat of new material isn't usually a problem,
    says Chris Johnson, editorial director for social studies texts at
    McDougal Littell.

    Texas, for instance, requires that texts at every grade level include
    information of the benefits of the free enterprise system. And
    California has asked for more material on Martin Luther King Jr. and
    labor organizer César Chávez to meet its social studies
    requirement. Shrinking photos often makes enough space so that the
    books don't get longer or lose other content, Mr. Johnson says.

    But for teachers, there's a concern about trade-offs. A key question,
    Altoff says, is "what provisions are being made to ensure that the
    coverage of that content is more than surface - that it's actually
    going to be meaningful within the time frame [they have to teach]?"

    "There is no simple answer," she adds. "That's why there's so much
    pressure from different curriculum groups."

    Additional 'must' topics vary from state to state

    State lawmakers sometimes get specific about the topics that public
    schools must teach. Some examples from recent years:

    Human rights

    * Sixteen states, ranging from Alabama to Nevada, have legislation on
    Holocaust education. Eight states require or encourage Holocaust
    instruction, while others simply establish commissions or task
    forces to help develop materials.

    * Rhode Island has had a law since 2000 requiring the education
    department to develop material on genocide, human rights, and
    slavery, including specifics such as the Holocaust, famine in
    Ireland, genocide in Armenia, and Mussolini's Fascist regime.

    * In several states, including New Jersey, Illinois, and New York,
    Amistad Commissions have been established to examine and improve the
    curriculum related to African-American history and slavery.

    Civics/citizenship

    * Most states require a course on government, civics, or citizenship,
    but to give these subjects more weight, five states now require a
    related exam as a graduation requirement. Another five states are
    phasing in such exams.

    * In 2004, California passed a law in part to ensure that the
    history/social science framework would include six documents: The
    Declaration of Independence; the Constitution, including the Bill of
    Rights; The Federalist Papers; The Emancipation Proclamation; The
    Gettysburg Address; and George Washington's farewell address.

    * Since 2003, Missouri has required every school (pre-K through 12th
    grade) to devote the equivalent of one class period to the meaning
    and significance of Veterans Day.

    Financial literacy

    * More than half the states have standards for personal finance
    education. Nine require testing in the subject, and seven -
    including Utah and Georgia most recently - require it for high
    school graduation.

    Sources: Education Commission of the States; National Council on
    Economic Education



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    Monitor. All rights reserved.
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