rollment.
Because of the closing of schools dinosaurs could not be found in any of the
in my district, I changed grade levels five
times infiveyears. One year, my rookie sta-
tus landed me in a sixth grade assignment
the day before school started. I managed to
find an outdated set of reading books and
a fairly up-to-date set of math books in the
book room. I could not find any books for
social studies, so at lunch I asked the veteran
teachers at that grade level what the sixth-
grade curriculum was for social studies.
Some 30 years later, 1 vividly recall their
answers. One teacher said, "I went to China
this summer, so I'm going to teach about
China." Another said, "I went to the Middle
East with my church, so I'm going to cover
Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. I
have a lot of slides." The third teacher, whose
room was crawlingwith snakes, iguanas and
other like creatures said, "I don't have time
to teach history because I like to spend my
time teaching science."
I discovered over the next few years that
teachers pretty much taught their heart's
desire, based on their interests and the text-
books available. It's no wonder dinosaur
units flourished. Because colorful tyran-
nosaurus rex pictures were found in every
teacher supply store, students were studying
dinosaurs in almost every grade level!
When a new superintendent arrived,
he surveyed the teachers as to what we per-
ceived to be the greatest needs in the district.
1 recall writing at the top of my list, "A coher-
ent, sequential curriculum of study for each
grade level in every subject." Over the years
we didn't get a coherent, much less stan-
dards-based curriculum, but we did adopt
new textbooks and, as is often the case, those
became the curriculum guides.
What Is a standards-based, coherent
curriculum?
Standards have been one of the hottest
topics in education reform for more than a
decade. The first I began to pay attention to
the "S" word was when the State Board of
Education adopted the English-language
arts standards in 1997. With the adoption of
these content standards, California set forth
for the first time a uniform and specific vi-
sion of what students should know and be
able to do in this subject area. Amazingly,
riculum and instruction, assessment, profes-
standards at any grade level! sional development and financial resources
Since 1997, we have standards for vir- all should be aligned to help students and
tually everything in public education. We schools attain the standards. At the heart of
have content standards in all subject areas a standards-based curriculum lie academic
and, with the newly adopted career techni- content standards, specifying what students
cal education standards and the finalization should know at each grade level and, by ex-
Five steps to implementing a coherent curriculum
y own personal study of the research, observations in hundreds of classrooms
M and examinations of the data lead me to the conclusion that schools that im-
plement a coherent, standards-based curriculum have
five key behaviors in common. They do the following:
1. Align the written, taught and tested curriculum,
2. Talk, talk and talk some more,
3. Provide high quality professional development to
bu ild the capacity of teachers and leaders,
4. Intervene on behalf of students who don't get it,
5. Have rock-solid leadership.
There are other characteristics of high performing
schools identified in the research, but I believe a focus on
thesefivebehaviors gives us the impetus we need to raise
the bar. The strategies I discuss in this article are simply "Cashology" - conclusions I
have come to after a decade of being a curriculum and instructional leader during the
implementation of the big "S." — Jeanie Cash
of preschool standards looming on the hori- tension, what should be taught. From these
zon, it seems that all bases are covered. content standards emerged a framework, or
In addition to content standards, we have a blueprint for schools to use to implement
standards for teachers (CTSP), standards the state-adopted content standards. These
for administrators (CPSELs) and several standards and this framework s/jow/iiguide
years ago Kappan came out with an article all classroom instruction.
that outlined standards for districts (Sirot- Grade-level standards establish high
nikandKimball, 1999). expectations for all students. They are the
Coherence means each and every goal in heart of our mission that ail students can
an accountability system is clearly specified reach their full potential, succeed academi-
and is measured completely without added cally, pursue higher education, find fulfill-
irrelevance. Standards-based means that ing careers, participate in our democracy as
there are essential standards that are the informed citizens, contribute to our culture
basis for the curriculum. Standards-based and pursue continuous learning through-
reform has become the driving force behind out their lives.
most federal, state and local education poli-
cies in the United States today. Ten years later, where are we?
In California, the focus on standards- When thefirststandards were published,
based instructional programs rests on the districts across the state began to scramble
belief that all children should have access to to identify and purchase supplemental ma-
more challenging curriculum content and terials that were standards-based. Publish-
that they should be expected to learn that ers quickly modified their texts to include
content at a proficient to high level of per- their version of an alignment to grade-level
formance. standards. Those who had the resources to
For 10 years, we have advocated that cur- move quickly to align the written, taught
Septetnber/October 2007