I'm not sure credits alone quite quantify what "narrowing" the curriculum means in practice. Normally "narrowing" means limitations within tested subjects.
Years ago I was reprimanded for daring to teach emails to freshman because (gasp!) it's a business standard. This despite the my then-school corporation's sanctimonious slogans about teaching digital citizenship. I was likewise told that since standardized tests only have short stories, I was forbidden from teaching anything *longer* than a short story.
Thus, the curriculum was narrowed because the content length had to mirror the assessment.
If we define "narrowing" purely in credits and time, sure! It doesn't exist! Silly teachers. Is my story invalid until administering a grand survey about districts which limited teaching because of testing within the 2010's?
Oh, I'm sure my story qualifies as a cognitive bias. Whatever. But sometimes educational data runs around with rulers and denies that temperature exists because the ruler said so.
Thanks for the comment, Adam. I do think the high school credit accumulation data suggests that kids aren't exactly being derailed from certain tracks or harmed in some way, but I take that we don't have a good way to measure all the potential ways the curriculum may have narrowed.
I believe this on the high school side, there's been a huge change in the discourse in recent years toward more student choice and letting students follow their interests at the high school level.
I'm curious if you have middle school data handy? While it's not huge, the decline in science and social studies seems worrying, especially as we realize that the knowledge-building effects of science and social studies play an important role in literacy instruction. I'm curious if that continues into middle school. Anecdotally, where I work we have very little elementary school science and social studies. In middle school we have more, but class sizes are larger than in English and math and combine multiple grades.
In terms of the assertion that the curriculum is narrowing -- I think the decline in science and social studies at lower grades is plenty of evidence for that claim. Those subjects play an important role, and the substantial decline we've seen, from already low levels, should be a cause for concern in my opinion.
Yea the blind "the curriculum is narrow" claims are clearly spurious, but there's a lot of room for nuance there to push schools in positive directions. I'm excited to see what comes out of the Louisiana project. We have an incredible talent in the US for ignoring good ideas from other states.
I'm not sure credits alone quite quantify what "narrowing" the curriculum means in practice. Normally "narrowing" means limitations within tested subjects.
Years ago I was reprimanded for daring to teach emails to freshman because (gasp!) it's a business standard. This despite the my then-school corporation's sanctimonious slogans about teaching digital citizenship. I was likewise told that since standardized tests only have short stories, I was forbidden from teaching anything *longer* than a short story.
Thus, the curriculum was narrowed because the content length had to mirror the assessment.
If we define "narrowing" purely in credits and time, sure! It doesn't exist! Silly teachers. Is my story invalid until administering a grand survey about districts which limited teaching because of testing within the 2010's?
Oh, I'm sure my story qualifies as a cognitive bias. Whatever. But sometimes educational data runs around with rulers and denies that temperature exists because the ruler said so.
Thanks for the comment, Adam. I do think the high school credit accumulation data suggests that kids aren't exactly being derailed from certain tracks or harmed in some way, but I take that we don't have a good way to measure all the potential ways the curriculum may have narrowed.
I believe this on the high school side, there's been a huge change in the discourse in recent years toward more student choice and letting students follow their interests at the high school level.
I'm curious if you have middle school data handy? While it's not huge, the decline in science and social studies seems worrying, especially as we realize that the knowledge-building effects of science and social studies play an important role in literacy instruction. I'm curious if that continues into middle school. Anecdotally, where I work we have very little elementary school science and social studies. In middle school we have more, but class sizes are larger than in English and math and combine multiple grades.
In terms of the assertion that the curriculum is narrowing -- I think the decline in science and social studies at lower grades is plenty of evidence for that claim. Those subjects play an important role, and the substantial decline we've seen, from already low levels, should be a cause for concern in my opinion.
I tend to agree. I do think the high school data is a bit of a counterpoint here (and I don't know of any good middle school data), but I would still like to see more time devoted to science and social studies and away from generic "reading comprehension" strategies. I wrote a bit more about that here: https://www.the74million.org/article/louisiana-pilot-program-tests-new-kind-of-reading-exam-that-could-be-a-model/
Yea the blind "the curriculum is narrow" claims are clearly spurious, but there's a lot of room for nuance there to push schools in positive directions. I'm excited to see what comes out of the Louisiana project. We have an incredible talent in the US for ignoring good ideas from other states.