Sources of Cuniculum Development
Curricula can be developed at many levels-by outside specialists, school district specialists, school curriculum teams, and teachers alone. At the national level, commercial materials such as textbooks, learning kits, and audiovisual materials are developed mainly by outside specialists. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110) introduced unprecedented federal controls over K-12 school curriculum in the 50 states. At the state level, departments of education have become increasingly active in curriculum development. Stares have legislated statewide competency rests for student promotion and graduation and have developed curriculum guides for local schools to ensure the teaching of those competencies. At the local level, many school systems have written their own curriculum guides for coordinating instruction across grade levels. This is done either by having curriculum specialists at the district level write the guides themselves or by having such specialists work with representative teams of teachers {perhaps with community and student representation). Rarely do local schools turn curriculum development entirely over to teachers. We can think about sources of curriculum development according to Figure 18.1 (sec Oliva, 1992). Much curriculum is developed at the stare, federal, and commercial levels. In other words, most curricula are produced far away from the local teacher and the local schools.